The word 'iconoclasm’ conjures to mind acts of burning and breaking, grim-faced figures wielding hammer and flame. In the sixteenth century, however, the desecration of formerly holy things could take a very different form: such objects were periodically placed in the hands of playing children. This lecture will argue that while this made a certain polemical sense - as a way of implying that traditional religion was inane and childish - such play was also a complex and volatile process. Once we understand the array of forces and discourses that coincided on such objects as they became toys, they can be seen as both fascinating anomalies, and exemplary of the competing values that playthings embody as they fluctuate between idol and doll.
Joe Moshenska is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a tutorial fellow of University College. He is the author of four books: Feeling Pleasures: The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England; A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby; Iconoclasm as Child’s Play; and Making Darkness Light: The Lives and Times of John Milton. He is the current President of the International Spenser Society and is the recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize. He is currently working on intersections between critical and creative writing, and between literature and anthropology.
The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion including Fabio Gygi (SOAS), Lisa Zingerle (Schubert Theater Wien) and VDTR member Alisha Saikia (University of Vienna).
You can also follow the event via Zoom.
