Sonja Drimmer
Biographic Data
| ID | 4194609 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sonja Drimmer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sonja |
| FAMILY NAME | Drimmer |
| SIGNATURE | DRIMMER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6865-7047 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Queer Transmissions
What does it mean when we rehearse the time‐worn temporal phrase, ‘ from manuscript to print’? For several decades, scholars have offered powerful models for understanding how queer individuals and communities experience both the restrictive and liberatory potentials of living against the grain of normative, linear time. Time has likewise been a perennial concern in the history of art, whether focused on how sequences of objects produced by a giv…
Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts
Reviewed by: Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book by Elaine Treharne Sonja Drimmer Elaine Treharne. Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 272 pp., 29 illustrations. $40. ISBN: 9780192843814. It wasn't easy getting a copy of this book. When I accepted the invitation to review Elaine Treharne's Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book, I was told that, be…
Panofsky's Debut
An introduction to Erwin Panofsky’s “‘The Problem of Style in the Visual Arts’” (1915
Diagramming Devotion
Connoisseurship, Art History, and the Paleographical Impasse in Middle English Studies
Over the last two decades, paleographers of manuscripts produced in late medieval England have sought to identify the scribes responsible for copying manuscripts of major literary texts by Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and Thomas Hoccleve. Opinions about these scholars’ attributions remain divided, and at present we stand at an impasse that does not appear to be resolvable from within the discipline of paleography itself. The ai…
The Severed Head as Public Sculpture in Late Medieval England
Chronicles of fifteenth-century England teem with severed heads. Frequently, these texts focus less on the event of decapitation than on its enduring result: namely, the modified and adorned head of the deceased, spiked and exhibited in a prominent public venue. This article concentrates on textual descriptions of such sights in order to propose that the head was not simply a byproduct of the premodern state’s judicial cruelty or merely evidence …
The Manuscript as an Ambigraphic Medium
This essay argues that late medieval manuscript producers were both aware of and at times troubled by the ontological ambiguity of the medium in which they worked. Nelson Goodman’s aesthetic philosophy provides an apt framework for characterizing this ambiguity, which rests on the manuscript’s dual status as both an allograph and an autograph. Embodying features of both, the manuscript demands a third category, which I term the “ambigraph.” Throu…
Questionable Contexts
O n New Year’s Day, 1567, Queen Elizabeth received a lavish pedigree book from Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms (London, British Library, King’s MS 396). 1 A large volume, it comprises three sections: the first contains the dedication to the queen, along with abstracts summarizing the descent of titles to her (fols. 1v–3v); 2 the second (figure 5), which encompasses the bulk of the manuscript, is an illuminated genealogy from Rollo to Elizab…
Connoisseurship, Art History, and the Paleographical Impasse in Middle English Studies
Over the last two decades, paleographers of manuscripts produced in late medieval England have sought to identify the scribes responsible for copying manuscripts of major literary texts by Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and Thomas Hoccleve. Opinions about these scholars’ attributions remain divided, and at present we stand at an impasse that does not appear to be resolvable from within the discipline of paleography itself. The ai…
Questionable Contexts
O n New Year’s Day, 1567, Queen Elizabeth received a lavish pedigree book from Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms (London, British Library, King’s MS 396). 1 A large volume, it comprises three sections: the first contains the dedication to the queen, along with abstracts summarizing the descent of titles to her (fols. 1v–3v); 2 the second (figure 5), which encompasses the bulk of the manuscript, is an illuminated genealogy from Rollo to Elizab…
The Manuscript as an Ambigraphic Medium
This essay argues that late medieval manuscript producers were both aware of and at times troubled by the ontological ambiguity of the medium in which they worked. Nelson Goodman’s aesthetic philosophy provides an apt framework for characterizing this ambiguity, which rests on the manuscript’s dual status as both an allograph and an autograph. Embodying features of both, the manuscript demands a third category, which I term the “ambigraph.” Throu…
The Severed Head as Public Sculpture in Late Medieval England
Chronicles of fifteenth-century England teem with severed heads. Frequently, these texts focus less on the event of decapitation than on its enduring result: namely, the modified and adorned head of the deceased, spiked and exhibited in a prominent public venue. This article concentrates on textual descriptions of such sights in order to propose that the head was not simply a byproduct of the premodern state’s judicial cruelty or merely evidence …
Diagramming Devotion
Connoisseurship, Art History, and the Paleographical Impasse in Middle English Studies
Over the last two decades, paleographers of manuscripts produced in late medieval England have sought to identify the scribes responsible for copying manuscripts of major literary texts by Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and Thomas Hoccleve. Opinions about these scholars’ attributions remain divided, and at present we stand at an impasse that does not appear to be resolvable from within the discipline of paleography itself. The ai…
Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts
Reviewed by: Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book by Elaine Treharne Sonja Drimmer Elaine Treharne. Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 272 pp., 29 illustrations. $40. ISBN: 9780192843814. It wasn't easy getting a copy of this book. When I accepted the invitation to review Elaine Treharne's Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book, I was told that, be…
Panofsky's Debut
An introduction to Erwin Panofsky’s “‘The Problem of Style in the Visual Arts’” (1915
Queer Transmissions
What does it mean when we rehearse the time‐worn temporal phrase, ‘ from manuscript to print’? For several decades, scholars have offered powerful models for understanding how queer individuals and communities experience both the restrictive and liberatory potentials of living against the grain of normative, linear time. Time has likewise been a perennial concern in the history of art, whether focused on how sequences of objects produced by a giv…
Art (8 works) · History (6 works) · Art history (4 works) · History (4 works) · Literature (4 works) · Medieval Literature and History (4 works) · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Visual arts (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works)