"Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages traces the intersections between vision, knowledge and embodiment in the period around 1200. On this basis alone it fills a significant gap in the study of visual cultures - a subject of increasing interest to historians, artists and theorists. Recent accounts of Western ocularcentrism have stressed the distancing and objectifying features of modern ways of seeing and knowing; this book charts the terrain of a more intimate and complex visual history.

By highlighting the foreignness of medieval ways of seeing - for example, the idea that sight involved a physical encounter comparable to touch - modern theories of vision and the gaze lose their claim to universality. Biernoff breaks new ground by bringing postmodern writings on vision and embodiment into dialogue with medieval texts and images; an interdisciplinary strategy that illuminates and complicates both cultures.

This is an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in the history and theory of visuality, and it is essential reading for scholars of art, science or spirituality in the medieval period."--BOOK JACKET.