In "The Rhetoric of Temporality" Paul deMan identified "time " as the constitutive element of allegory; however, later in the essay he admits that symbol (constituted by a spatial relation) and allegory have moved suspiciously close to one another. Even in the definition of allegory as dependent on a "temporal distance" between that which appears and that to which it refers, time and space are yoked. Personification, allegory's most recognizable form, actually gestures to a topological presence of something other which appears by virtue of a persona or mask.

This seminar will consider whether "space" is also constitutive or otherwise essential to allegory. Allegories have been illustrated in manuscripts and books as well as in independent works of art. Since at least late antiquity, allegory has had a strong presence as a hermeneutic mode of literary and art criticism. The theatre provides yet another form which is equally spatial and temporal in the representation of something other than what appears. Papers addressing any allegorical medium are welcome. All papers should clearly define allegory and then challenge the relation of allegory to time and/or space.

Please submit abstracts of 250-500 words via email (not as an attachment) or post no later than September 20, to: Brenda Machosky, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Email: machosky@students.wisc.edu; mailing address:163 Cedar Street, Ventura, CA 93001; phone: (805) 653-7679.