This panel considers the often overlooked presence of flora and fauna in early modern print, whether they appear as marginalia, within printers’ ornaments, or as materially integral to books. Animals and plants always carry symbolic value—a single image sometimes carrying diametrically opposed values—and participate in a broader network of signification through emblems, printers’ ornaments, marginalia, and engraven images. Do those values come into tension with each other via the margin, the marginal, and the marginalized? In what ways do peripheral plants and animals comment on questions of identity, like gender, race, or disability? What new symbolic trends emerge in how early modern people understand, experience, or imitate the animal, vegetal, human, or artificial? Are peripheral plants and animals a site for experimentation or imitation? How do peripheral plants and animals on the periphery undo binaries and suggest alternative hierarchies? Do certain plants or animals belie a transnational or global exchange not indicated by the linguistic context of a book?  Papers may seek to understand how these features and trends gesture to the forces that precede and follow inscription: the financial, intellectual, social, and material transactions rendering the printed materials possible and shaping their reception.

Scholars at any career stage and from any discipline are invited to participate; doctoral candidates and early career scholars are especially encouraged to apply, as are candidates thinking about print outside of traditional academic settings. Please send a brief CV and a proposal to jak2308@columbia.edu and eboeckeler@northeastern.edu by July 15. Accepted participants will be notified no later than July 20.