Images of Anonymous Women
A Semiotic Approach to Image-Text Relations in Interpretation of Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
By (author) Y. Kim
Hardback (Published)
(July 2026)
ISBN: 9789042957732
Price: $150.00
On back order
Interpretation is a comprehensive act involving various sign systems, both visual and verbal. While viewers of images construct narratives when interpreting them, readers build interpretations of texts through related visual imagery. When images and texts thus become inseparable in interpretation, an adequate method for analyzing both within an isomorphic framework is required. In this volume, Kim introduces semiotics as a transdisciplinary method and presents two semiotic models to support a meta-critical analysis of both textual and visual interpretations. These models are applied to interpretations of two anonymous women from the ancient Near East: a nude woman depicted on an Old Babylonian terracotta plaque, and a woman described in chapter 7 of the biblical Song of Songs. For each case, Kim presents her own interpretation alongside analyses of two contemporary interpretations: those of Zainab Bahrani and Julia Assante for the Old Babylonian figure, and those of Othmar Keel and Fiona Black for the biblical text. <br />The semiotic analysis reveals unique interpretations, each of which emerges from an interplay between the studied works’ inherent ambiguity or polysemy and the interpreters’ personal preferences. The diverse backgrounds of the latter – academic, feminist, or cultural – and their strategies for relating images to texts – whether historical, thematic, semiotic, or grotesque – fill the works’ inenarrable or invisible gaps in distinctive ways, highlighting the crucial role every interpreter plays in producing his or her interpretation. Kim emphasizes the significance of subjectivity in every interpretation: it is only when the subjectivity of any interpretation is recognized that the interpreter may become the focal point of semiotic analysis, an analysis which aims to move beyond the image-text dichotomy. Grounded in semiotic methodology, the model of a tripartite relationship between image, text, and interpreter offers a significant advance beyond the image-text binary which persists in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern studies.
- By (author) Y. Kim
Other Titles in this Series
Senebi und Selbst
Personenkonstituenten zur rituellen Wiedergeburt in einem Frauensarg des Mittleren Reiches
Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah
Papers Presented at a Colloquium of the Swiss Society of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Held at the University of Bern, September 6, 2014
Menschenwürde und Menschenrechte im Altem Orient, Israel und Hellas. Band 1
Human Dignity and Human Rights in the Ancient Near East, Ancient Israel, and Hellas. Volume 1
Volume 311
Wortschöpfung
Die Memphitische Theologie und die Siegesstele des Pije – zwei Zeugen kultureller Repräsentation in der 25. Dynastie
‘Trinkt von dem Wein, den ich mischte!’ ‘Drink of the Wine which I have Mingled!’
Festschrift für Silvia Schroer zum 65. Geburtstag
Volume 303
Garments of the Gods
Studies on the Textile Industry and the Pantheon of Sippar according to the Texts from the Ebabbar Archive
La Samarie, la Diaspora et l’achèvement de la Torah
Territorialités et internationalités dans l’Hexateuque
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Scribal Scholarship in Antiquity
Studies in Honor of Arie van der Kooij on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday
Volume 306
Tabou et transgressions
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 11-12 avril 2012
La Septante en Allemagne et en France/Septuaginta Deutsch und Bible d’Alexandrie
Textes de la Septante à traduction double ou à traduction très littérale/Texte der Septuaginta in Doppelüberlieferung oder in wörtlicher Übersetzung
The Text of Leviticus
Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthelemy Institute, held in Fribourg (October 2015)
Volume 292
Entre dieux et hommes : anges, démons et autres figures intermédiaires
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 19 et 20 mai 2014
Divine Names on the Spot
Towards a Dynamic Approach of Divine Denominations in Greek andSemitic Contexts
Volume 293
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