Imagineering Violence - Techniques of Early Modern Performativity in the Northern and Southern Netherlands (1630-1690) (ITEMP-violence) (FWOAL769)

Central to the project is the concept of imagineering, a term we have appropriated from its earlier use in the creative industry and that is a composite of ‘engineering’ and ‘imagining’. It allows us to conceptualise the reciprocally manipulative relation between audience and media. Not only did the public have an influence on commercial institutions such as the theatre or the publishing market, these media also had, the other way round, a normative and experiential impact on these audiences, framing their understanding of reality. Theatre, the visual arts, public spectacles, and so forth, all represent and give shape to violence through the different techniques that are available to them, making violence imaginable to their early modern public. In fact imagineering finds its match in the age-old Dutch word ‘verbeelding’, which at once signifies imagination and representation.

Keywords:linguistique et littérature, linguistics and literature

Disciplines:Comparative literature studies