Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that the 13th Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies will be held at the University of Vienna from July 28th to August 2nd 2025. The members of the local organising team are all working at the Institute of Classical Philology, Medieval and Neo-Latin Studies at the University of Vienna:
- Elisabeth Klecker specializes in Neo-Latin literature of the former Habsburg territories, she is a passionate photographer collecting Latin inscriptions and all kinds of word-image combinations. She will organise the excursions and manage the communication with the Society for Emblem Studies.
- Doris Vickers is the webmaster of the conference website and will be hosting the digital sessions before and during the conference. She is interested in emblematic sundials and astronomical emblems.
- Sonja Reisner is the librarian of the Institute of Classical Philology and will manage the library networks.
- Lavinia Enache will be looking after student participants, trainees and scholarship holders.
Elisabeth Klecker has designed the logo for the conference: we decided to use an emblem from the library of Vorau monastery in Styria, which is extraordinarily rich in emblematic frescoes and was an important starting point for emblem studies in Austria. In 1960 Grete Lesky whose pioneering role will be commemorated at the conference published a seminal study about “Baroque emblems in Vorau and other monasteries in Austria”.
With his motto PROSPICIT ET RESPICIT Janus transports the idea that a library lets the reader not only delve into the past but also build a future based on the knowledge handed down by former generations. This could be translated for the Society of Emblem Studies: The research, which has been conducted since its foundation, is now being used by young scholars to further advance the field. In Vienna, we understand Janus – who is depicted as having two faces looking into opposite directions – to be the God of gates, passages and doorways, who opens up the conference to previously not (or under-)represented regions and research fields. Moreover, the Roman temple of Janus was a symbol of peace, and we sincerely hope that the conference will be able to take place in peaceful times.
The last conference in Coimbra was originally planned for 2020 but had to be postponed to 2022. This unfortunate circumstance, however, gave birth to the innovative „Road to Coimbra“ online sessions. It gave the Society a chance to keep in touch with each other and to shorten the time until the next conference. We have decided, although the pressure of the global pandemic has dropped significantly, to organise „Road to Vienna“ sessions in the lead up to our conference. Additionally to two regular talks, they will introduce Austrian examples for applied emblematics (outside the book) and institutions, which could be interesting to emblem researchers. For the program of the first two sessions see the information below. More details will appear soon the conference website: https://emblemstudies2025.univie.ac.at/ which is under construction at the moment and will be launched in February.
We look forward to welcoming you to Vienna and hope to see you at the digital sessions.
Organising Committee of the 13th Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies