In this chapter I explain Jean-Luc Marion’s developing uses of the word “icon,” not primarily as a painted image, but precisely as the way God shows himself, breaking through the idolatry of the finite human perspective through the counter-gaze, or reversal of intentionality. Despite his language that appears to be iconoclastic, I argue that Marion’s discussion of the kenosis of the sacred image is deeply faithful to the patristic iconophile spirit, transposed to a phenomenological key. In this, Marion opens up a third way of understanding mediation, which I explain through the metaphor of the transparent window. Just as glass is not an obstacle to the rays of the sun, provided it is cleared of smudges or flaws, the finite limits of creatures are no obstacle for the infinite, as long as they are open to receive what is communicated.

This chapter raises the problematic of mediation as illustrated through the schema of a finite seashell trying to capture an infinite ocean. After providing a provisional definition of “mediation,” I lay out my central approach to a solution: to shed light on how such mediation can work in general by exploring how it works in the particular case of the Eastern Christian icon.

Using several examples, I discuss the features of Byzantine icons as a form of representational art. In addition to tensions which can occur within the image itself, I point out tensions between the expression of a glory which surpasses the limitations of the aesthetics alone (through the use of gold, perspective, and the mandorla) as well as an impoverishment which falls well beneath what images are capable of (the submission of the painting to prescribed word, in content, style, and name). This paradoxical inclusion of highs and lows, straining against the limits of representation on both sides, hints that the icon is aiming to express a meaning greater than the image alone.

The underlying proposition, that translation is a model or homologue of ecological action, involves the rejection of notions of preservation and conservation. For their own continuing health, ecosystems need to be conducted in the same spirit as a translational act. The chapter then turns to Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt and its apprpriateness to translational thinking; then to its legacy in biosemiotics. How, then, does translational language achieve that perlocutionary ability to re-immerse us in the environment? Through the cultivation of idiolect and alternity (Steiner), and of situatedness and presentness of the voice, particularly in articulation, paralanguage and rhythm, which envelope the verbal with the non-verbal and allow the human to slide towards the non-human. Equally language must be coaxed in the direction of the indexical, iconic and onomatopoeic, more flexibly understood; and language must be translated into forms and shapes unfamiliar to itself so that it can explore other models of psycho-perception. Arguments in the chapter are exemplified in translations of Hugo, Saint-John Perse, Heredia, Baudelaire and Hopkins.

The iconic image of Wilfred Owen as the ‘poet of pity’ has reinforced a one-dimensional understanding of his poems that are more than just the sum of their emotional impact: they reimagine and exceed his major literary influences.This chapter explores the multi-layered achievement of Owen's work, both formal and thematic, that continues to invite re-reading and interpretation.In bearing witness for those unable and/or unwilling to articulate their war experiences, he turned his perspective outwards, away from the solipsism of his adolescence and pre-war adulthood, towards the soldiers he led and with whom he served. Yet Owen saw only five poems published in his lifetime; his posthumous reputation was shaped by other poets including Siegfried Sassoon, Edith Sitwell, Edmund Blunden, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Jon Stallworthy.This chapter therefore also explores the cultivation of Owen’s mythic status and his poems’ place in national memory.

This chapter focuses on the power of words and images. It introduces basic concepts that are pivotal in verbal, visual, and multimodal communication. First, it discusses writing in the digital age and explores the media linguistic mindset that is required in rapidly changing digital environments. Furthermore, a set of sixteen key practices of focused writing and writing-by-the way in the newsroom and beyond are presented. The second part of the chapter covers theoretical concepts of visual communication by addressing different approaches to reading images. One pivotal approach is social semiotics – a grand theory that can be applied to all kinds of semiotic material used for communication. This approach is complemented with concepts from other semiotic traditions as well as rhetorical and critical theories about images and their effects on the users. In addition, certain questions related to multimodal communication and related key concepts are discussed. The chapter concludes with the main message that all forms of human communication are multimodal.

In Chapter 6, I introduce hermeneutic phenomenology as a philosophical method relating to the description and interpretative analysis of experience. French phenomenology has become a dialogue partner for theology and religion because of its capacity to accommodate what might be given without appearing as such. For Marion, this opens the possibility of recognising phenomena that signify in excess of or counter to experience, including phenomena of r/Revelation. After sketching Marion's typology of saturated phenomena and considering some of the criticism that has emerged in response, I observe his deepening insight that the phenomenality of the event characterises each of the counter-experiences he describes, and so has a particular importance. If what exceeds intentionality is described in terms of the event rather than as a phenomenon of revelation, we avoid the difficulties of the r/Revelation distinction that Marion draws, and decrease the sense that revelation is being smuggled into phenomenology. I also note that the event is a figure used more broadly in contemporary thought and so enables us to connect Marion’s work with that of others in potentially fruitful dialogue.

With literacy rising but still low, it was through the visual arts that millions of nineteenth-century Russians encountered new thinking about personhood, social relations, and national identity. Artists had been locked into an official hierarchy determined by training and awards, and they enthusiastically joined the emerging free professions. The market heated up as incomes rose and advances in printing made images affordable. Visual culture responded at every level of society. A group of artists who became known as the Wanderers (Peredvizhniki) (because they traveled to exhibit their work) deviated from tradition and took as subjects Russia’s peasants. Illustrated magazines achieved great influence from the 1860s on and also departed from officially promoted traditions, although in ways that differed from those of the Wanderers. Cheap lubok prints brought contemporary themes to the villages and to the urban working poor. Social change irrevocably altered perceptions of the Self and the Other – the faces people saw in their mirrors and their neighbors, relatives, and random passers-by on the street - and innovations in visual culture validated those changing perceptions. The inclusion of the visual arts in the gathering cultural energy propelled further innovation and creative genius in the years ahead.

Chapter 3 examines the creation of the image of God, pointing to the significance of the materiality and visibility of the image when compared with the invisibility of angels. This relates to how Gregory depicts the image of God as divine. Due to his narration of how God mixes the spiritual image with the dust, we shall see that Gregory portrays the image and the dust as becoming a unity, and thus a single, living human person. Drawing from Genesis 1, Gregory argues explicitly that God creates women and men equally as images of God; moreover he writes about the female image in a manner which demonstrates further his view of the image quite literally as a physical, living and divine image of God.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of Gregory’s hermeneutics, arguing that Gregory interprets the whole biblical narrative in light of Christ and the salvation story. We move on to establish the predominant biblical themes which feed into Gregory’s multifaceted account of the image of God. These include beliefs about the divine presence manifested through images and idols; ethics; and an interesting thread which concerns the spiritual warfare between the image of God and powers of opposition, of which ‘the devil’ is common epithet used by Gregory.