Saturday, July 04, 2009

York 1190 Poster Contest

by J J Cohen

As announced previously, we are running a poster contest for the conference York 1190: Jews and Others in the Wake of Massacre. The conference will be held at the University of York in March 2010.

Please take a moment, follow this link, and choose which poster you prefer (some are in multiple versions: choose the version you like best). They all have much to commend, but you can vote for only one. Fell free to leave your reasons for your choice in the comments to this post.

Voting is completely anonymous and the poll closes Wednesday July 8 at 5 PM Eastern Time. Thank you to everyone who submitted a poster!

8 comments:

Janice said...

I vote for 11902 -- the composition is good, the text is distinctive yet readable and the suggestion of the image at the side is intriguing but not overwhelming.

Matt said...

I went with 11906. I agree with Janice's assessment of the mis-en-scene: that part of Clifford's Tower is obscured resonates with our position vis a vis York 1190. I preferred the sans-serif font, less distracting and this font, more than any of the others, really serves the splendid ironies of the phrase: "Jews and Others." I like the elongated Y very much--maybe it evokes the decisiveness of York 1190 for subsequent centuries of northern European jewry. Finally, some of the candidate posters near the latter part of the lot were way too cluttered with information and omitted contact information.

This conference looks fascinating--can't wait to hear more via ITM.

Eileen Joy said...

No brainer: 11903. Especially because, if seen from a distance, it is striking, even if you cannot read the fine print.

Dr. Virago said...

I'm surprised that so many are voting for 11903. To me it looks too much like the ads and posters for the York Dungeon. But maybe that's a good thing. (Or maybe no one's seen those ads and posters recently enough to make that connection.)

I had a hard time voting, because I like elements of a number of them, and now I'm not even sure I prefer the one I voted for. I think I like the 'profile' pictures of Clifford's Tower -- they have more movement. (I said the same about Bullock's pictures from our recent trip.) But it looks strangely askew in 11904, though I prefer the font in that one to 11902, where it's less askew. (11902 also has a lot going on in it with the superimposed MS decorations.) And for the purposes of a poster for an event, I actually like the clarity of the symmetry of 11906, so I think I voted for that.

Ack, I don't know.

Karl Steel said...

I suppose I have no brain. 11909. I vote against Clifford's Tower since it gives us a fake sense of solidity and presence. But this isn't the right tower at all. If there were some way to portray the absence of the old wooden (?) tower from 1190, and the stone one superimposed over it, great. Otherwise, I'm against showing it.

I have position reasons to vote for 11909 too: the church with the star of David for the rose window actually makes an argument (one in line w/ most recent critical readings of Jewish Xian relations). I love the text too, but that's just lagniappe.

Karl Steel said...

"positive reasons" that is

Mary Kate Hurley said...

This is really hard. I think I'm with Eileen though -- I really like the fire motif...

Karl Steel said...

I also think that a poster featuring a tower, even (as in most of the posters here) the wrong tower (albeit in the right place), misrepresents Jeffrey's own arguments. I realize that Jeffrey is one among many speakers, but his work, at least, is not just about the conflict of Xianity and Judaism. It's about--at least in chunks--local, happenstance relationships, friendships, or even conflicts that complicate grands récits. The Judaism in Xianity and Xianity in Judaism poster of 11909 begins to get this across better than (again, I want to stress, the not thoughtfully anachronistic) Clifford's Tower (unless the speakers plan to talk about the way that Clifford's Tower gets invested with the weight of the massacre to such an extent that it's almost as if Sir Roger Clifford has become, through condensation, a Jewish martyr). That said, I'm not a fan of the monumentality of posters 1190-2 through -9. I wonder, however, if Jeffrey might do a postmonumental reading (?) of stonework to complicate Xian/Jewish interrelation/inter-reliance?