Flesh Made Word: The Tattooed Body as Script and Signature

Thu., March 30, 5-6:30 p.m., free, Penn Museum, 3260 South St., 215-573-8280

A picture may be worth a thousand words and sometimes it's worth lots more. Take tattoos. These ink-on-flesh pictures may be an initiation rite for members of a gang or fraternity, a visible declaration of love, or a permanent memento of a night when you had too much to drink. Whatever. Tattoos are conversation starters, and if you attend this Penn Humanities program, the conversation will get mighty deep with University of Oxford historian Jane Caplan (Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History) speaking. For this lecture Caplan talks about the significance of tattoos in the 19th century, including metaphorical, societal and historical connotations. From there she relates how Victorian mores influenced body art in current Western society, where the tattoo is enjoying a popular resurgence. Tattoos as cultural signpost—aye matey, who'd a thunk it?