International Word & Image Conference to be Held at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – There will be an international conference held at the College of the Holy Cross from June 27 to June 29 titled "Illness: Representation in the Arts & Literature." The event, held every other year since 1986, marks one of the largest gatherings of international scholars in the humanities around a single theme.

Thirty-two academics from around the world will be attending the conference to present papers and participate in conversation on the links between verbal and non-verbal representations of illness. Attendees include art historians, literary scholars, sculptors and filmmakers from such countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and the United States.

The conference will feature as its plenary speaker professor Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, and author of The Body in Pain (1985), On Beauty and Being Just (1999) and Dreaming by the Book (1999).

Members of the Holy Cross faculty have been part of this multi-disciplinary conference since its inception 19 years ago. This year’s International Word & Image Conference will extend the theme as well as reflect the Hope and Healing exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum.

"I believe the conference, like the Hope and Healing exhibit, reflects the intellectual and scholarly interests, as well as the values of the College and its mission," said Maurice Geracht, conference co-chair and professor of English at Holy Cross.

The event is sponsored by the international French/English journal Interfaces, the University of Paris 7 and the College of the Holy Cross. Papers submitted for the conference will be considered for publication in "Interfaces," co-edited by the University of Paris 7 and Holy Cross.

For a complete schedule of events visit the conference’s Web site: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/english/website/iwic/index.htm