Laurence Danguy studied art history, history and archaeology at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She also studied management sciences at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne (MBA – IAE Paris). In 2006, she completed her PhD in History and Art Sciences as part of a joint supervision arrangement between the EHESS and the University of Konstanz (Germany). Her thesis was published in 2009 under the title L'ange de la jeunesse & La revue Jugend et le Jugendstil à Munich (MSH, Philia series). Between 2005 and 2009, she taught at the University of Konstanz. She has been affiliated with UNIL since 2008 as a researcher (on several SNSF projects) and as a lecturer in the Department of Art History and the Centre for Historical Cultural Studies (SHC). At EHESS, she was a lecturer from 2010 to 2012 (The Modern Angel), then again between 2016 and 2018 (Creation and Subversion of the Popular Image in the European Artistic Field). She is an associate researcher with the ISOR team at the Centre for 19th-Century History at Paris I-Paris IV, the Swiss correspondent for the Centre for the Study of Writing and the Image (CEEI) and a member of its Board of Directors, as well as a member of the interdisciplinary research team on the satirical image (EIRIS). She recently co-edited L'œil numérique and published two major contributions on the early work of Louise Bourgeois as well as the Tarot de Marseille. She is currently co-editing an anthology on the notion of the incorrect (Figures de controverses et thèmes controversés. How to deal with the incorrect? with Panayota Badinou), an issue of Sociétés & Représentations entitled Voyance et divination (with Sylvain Ledda) as well as an issue of Ridiculosa on Caricature et jeu (with Michela Lo Feudo and Ludivine Thouverez). Together with Julien Schuh, she co-leads the research seminar L'oeil numérique (PictorIA consortium). Her current research focuses on the Tarot of Marseille, caricature, art theory and the digital humanities.

List of publications:

ORCID record : orcid.org/0000-0002-7114-8198

Tarot de Marseille
Caricature
Art theory
Digital humanities

The Tarot of Marseille is one of those objects that has been kept at arm’s length by the humanities. It is characterised by iconographic inconsistency coupled with shifting practices and beliefs, which make it difficult to grasp. Few objects encapsulate fanciful tales and fantasies to such an extent. Nothing foreshadowed the scandalous fate that this playful card game—where the aim was simply to win the hand—would come to face. It was its association with divination practices, beginning in the 18th century, that gradually altered the status of a tarot deck, later named the Tarot of Marseille. From an earlier period, when the deck was simply known as ‘tarot’, sumptuous examples have survived, whose court cards draw on emblems, Christian iconography and astrology, whilst the face cards draw on military iconography. These Italian cards produced in the years 1440–1442, known as the Visconti Tarot, represent one of the two strands of tarot history incorporated into art history. The second consists of surrealist works and their extensions. Apart from these two aesthetically valued strands, we are faced with a neglected area of research dominated and shaped by Anglo-Saxon historiography. This project aims to provide a comprehensive cultural and material history of the Tarot of Marseille from its origins to the 21st century. It draws on various preparatory studies and is structured around four objectives: 1/ to identify the circulation of visual and textual motifs, and to conceptualise the relationship between texts and images 2/ to analyse the mechanisms of tarot appropriation, and to enrich our understanding of the exchanges between high culture and popular culture 3/ to document and reassess Switzerland’s role as a cultural hub and the site of two symbolic appropriations of the deck (Wirth and Haich) 4/ observe adaptations, appropriations and contemporary creations, in order to gauge the creative potential of the cards and identify new patterns of appropriation. This project is based on collaboration between specialists in digital humanities, visual studies, games, literary studies and occultism, the sociology of religion and material history. Building on synergies between researchers at the University of Lausanne and EPFL, and supported by strong partnerships (the French Playing Card Museum, the Swiss Museum of Games, the University of Rouen-Normandy, HEAD-Geneva), it employs an original and interdisciplinary methodology that combines a computational approach applied to large iconographic and textual corpora, traditional archival and iconographic research, with a research-creation project. Its scope will consist of: 1/ breaking down disciplinary barriers surrounding playing cards and tarot through the creation of an international research hub that will benefit the entire academic community; 2/ a study contributing to the field of the imaginary, refining the boundary between the playful and the divinatory; 3/ updating structural processes of knowledge circulation whilst challenging the separation between high culture and popular culture; 4/ a renewal of iconological studies in the wake of Warburgian scholarship; 5/ the development of a methodological and intellectual framework to be used in future for the study of hybrid and enduring objects; 6/ high visibility through conferences, the organisation of academic events, a film, participation in cultural events, teaching, as well as through collaboration with museums to create and support three exhibitions. The Tarot of Marseille is not merely an object prized by the general public. It is also gaining recognition within academic research.