{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03290529695024077, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009630818619582664, 'mean_word_length': 4.909952606635071, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Where the Difference Lies in Image-Text Studies

As a PhD candidate studying image-texts 1550–1700, I have found that four debates structure the study of image and text in the Reformation. As a researcher and as a teacher, I do believe that scholarly debate can expose assumptions, promote revision, and ultimately, advance the discipline. Therefore I approach each debate with two goals: first, to find where the difference really lies, and second, to point a way forward for future scholarship. I begin with the ‘‘nature of the book’’ and a debate between Adrian Johns and Elizabeth Eisenstein. I find the difference concerns not only the ‘‘fixity’’ of the book, but the ‘‘agents of change’’ in the emplotment of Reformation history. I turn, then, to the circulation and price of illustrated books, especially as disputed within Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman’s Religion and the Book in Early Modern England. I find this project argues for a contextualist history, unlike neighboring projects that address iconophobia. Like many scholars, they have now found reasons to object to the narrative of English iconophobia from 1580 onward. I will conclude by suggesting a new model for iconophobia that draws exceptions for narrative image.