RSA 2019: Transforming Bodies in Early Modern Drama (July 16th, 2018)
Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 2019: 17–19 March 2019, Toronto, Canada
Transforming Bodies in Early Modern Drama
**This is a guaranteed session**
How are bodies–of people, plants, or animals–transformed on the early modern stage? What are the agents of transformation, and is there something about drama in particular that allows for bodily transformation? How is transformation represented (or not represented) dramatically? What constitutes a "body" on stage, and is a body still the same if parts of it transform? What does the transformation of the body tell us about corporeal unity, identity, transformation, or the instability of the body or identity? How can bodily transformation intersect with theoretic frameworks such as materialism, historicism, ecocriticism, animal studies, or the post-human? Topics may include (but are not limited to) the way violence (physical, sexual, verbal), ritual, disguise, death, love, the natural world, disease, wounds, language, power, fear, etc have a transforming effect on the early modern human and non-human bodies that populate early modern drama, through any theoretical lens. Please send 150-word abstracts and brief CV to Christina M. Squitieri (cms531@nyu.edu) and Penelope Meyers Usher (pfm250@nyu.edu) by Monday, July 16th, 2018. This panel will be sponsored by the Early Modern and Renaissance Society at New York University.