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Abstract for the talk that I’m delivering at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Berlin, DL, on March 28, 2015. It will be part of the session “Socratic Irony in European Visual Art and Culture, 1450-1700.”
European Medieval Drama
Jesters in the Temple, Boy Bishops in the Streets: Laughter and Transgression from Advent to Ash Wednesday2007 •
2022 •
International Medieval Congress in Leeds
The Boundaries of Folly: a Study of the Ecclesiastical Parody2020 •
From the late 12th century parodies of liturgical texts became widespread throughout Europe. This paper investigates the forms of comedy characteristic for this kind of texts and deals with the correlation between sacred originals and profane parodies and the transcendence of the boundaries of sanctity. Focusing on two exemplar parodies, 'Confitemini Dolio' and 'Offcium Lusorum', the survey explores textual peculiarities such as paronimyc attraction, distinct imagery and attributes of the exact opposite to the Christian world formed within these texts, and discovers the Latin sources of parodies, such as false Gospel fragments, prayers and hymns, embracing various means of liturgical travesty.
Journal of Social History
Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools. By Max Harris (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. v plus 322 pp. $49.95)2012 •
This paper deals with the depiction of the fool in visual art in late medieval Bohemia. Following a brief summary of the literature on the iconography of the jester or fool and the meaning of the figure in medieval culture, the paper focuses on individual and, until now, largely neglected iconographic variants occurring in the Bohemian Lands. Their meaning can be revealed by a comparison with analogies abroad. This is the case with the figure of a vainglorious man depicted in a wall painting of the Last Judgment in the Church of St James in Srbeč. One of the attributes of this man is a large spoon that has a double meaning in German, pointing out his stupidity. Another example is a relief in the Lapidarium of the National Museum that was found in Brandýs nad Labem. It does not, as was supposed in earlier literature, show a hunter with his dog; instead, it portrays a half-naked foolexhibitionist. A similar explanation relates to the jester with exposed genitalia that appears on a stove tile found in Brno. The figure of the fool played an essential role in the depiction of some distinctive iconographic themes, such as the portrayal of the Morris dance. This theme is evoked in three weathered statues known as the ‘dancers’ on the parapet of the Church of St Barbara in Kutná Hora. Such sculptural decoration on an important Utraquist church makes sense with regard to the moral meaning of the Morris dance, which demonstrates the foolishness of physical love. As well as individual iconographic types of folly, the paper also focuses on the portrayal of fools in the context of other scenes. The presence of a ‘commentary’ fool can often change the meaning of an image or draw attention to inconsistencies in the depiction of the main motif. On the altar of St. James in Most, the fool thus draws attention to a miracle; in the group of corbels from Hrádek in Kutná Hora, he probably refers to the neighbouring ill-matched couple. A complex use of the motif is demonstrated in the intricately composed hunting scene in the Green Chamber in Žirovnice, where the two fools portrayed on the margin of the scene confirm the allegorical subtext.
Journal of The American Musicological Society
In Praise of Spurious Saints: The "Missae Floruit egregiis" by Pipelare and La Rue1991 •
At Juvenal 5.141–45, Virro distributes a curious series of presents to the children of his impoverished client Trebius: a viridis thorax, nuts, and an as. Through an exploration of the connotations attached to these gifts, I argue that the scene provides a vivid mise en abyme for the rest of the poem. Just as the dinner offered to Trebius is not only meager but transforms him into a buffoon, the presents given to his children are both mean and perverse. In particular, the viridis thorax has un-Roman and effeminate connotations akin to the description of patronage as a sexual perversion in Satire 9.
1985 •
16th Annual Society for Humanistic Psychology Conference
Should Fanon Be Considered One of the Founders of Existential Psychology? Considering His Contributions for Existential Clinical Practice2024 •
1976 •
2021 •
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Unconventional Bonding of Azafullerenes: Theory and Experiment1996 •
Revista De Investigacion
La perspectiva epistemológica objetivista y la hegemonía de la investigación cuantitativa en las ciencias sociales2013 •
2015 •
arXiv (Cornell University)
Transforming Human-Centered AI Collaboration: Redefining Embodied Agents Capabilities through Interactive Grounded Language Instructions2023 •