cfp.english.upenn.edu

5th Global Conference
The Erotic - Exploring Critical Issues

Friday 6th November - Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria

The erotic remains a tantalisingly difficult concept to describe or delineate – a quality we all understand in our subjective experience and affective reflections but find difficult to bound or delimit in our intellectual work. Whilst most engagements with the erotic recognise a relationship between the erotic and the sexual, it is clear that the erotic presents a far more complex and discursive space within which the phenomenological, aesthetic, scientific and normative understanding of issues of human sensuality, sexuality, desire and taste can be articulated. This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project, now calling for participation in its fifth conference, aims to explore the challenging and paradoxical nature of the ‘erotic’. It has three overarching aims and emphases for this conference:

* To explore the relationship between the erotic, the exotic and the aesthetic in respect of the range and diversity of sexual identities, relations, orientations, acts and behaviours
* To explore the erotic as an ethical, political, social and philosophical terrain of study with particular reference to diversity in culture and the post-colonial voice in eroticism
* To explore the erotic in its many represents in the arts, music, literature, film and other cultural mediums

Whilst we welcome high quality expositions on the erotic within particular or specialised disciplinary boundaries, we are particularly interested in interdisciplinary contributions that balance the scope of insight that disciplines bring with the limitations that disciplinary boundaries create in failing to recognise cross-disciplinary connections, which neglect important historical and cultural perspectives on the development of the ‘erotic’ as a locus of attention. Consequently, we are particularly keen to encourage submissions that are not subsumed within disciplines, but cut across and between disciplinary vocabularies to provide new synergies, eclectic domains and inter-disciplinary possibilities.

This extends to the nature of submission and performance. We are open to proposals that go beyond traditional paper presentations to occupy panels, give performances, or offer workshops – in effect to demonstrate in practice the multi-faceted nature of discourse around the erotic whilst maintaining an appropriate intellectual quality. Whatever the mode of articulation, all submissions should demonstrate a high quality of scholarship, critical thinking and academic rigour in exploring the erotic.

The conference and the project aims to instigate inter-disciplinary dialogues on the ‘erotic’ in human societies and enable creative and imaginative inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives on its forms, meanings and manifestations. Submissions are welcome on any of the following themes:

* the erotic and identity: disability, ethnicity, gender, class and otherness
* the erotic in education and the education of the erotic
* the erotic in popular culture
* the erotic in literature and on the screen
* the erotic and its relationship to pornography and exploitation
* the erotic, ethics and philosophy
* the erotic and the eroticised or de-eroticised body
* the erotic: absence, control and excess
* the erotic and sexual representation
* the erotic in media - film, print, tv, internet
* the erotic and (post- neo-)colonialism
* the erotic as the making of the exotic
* the erotic and the phenomenological

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 19th June 2009. If your paper is accepted for presentation at the conference, an 8 page draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th October 2009.

300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Paul Reynolds
Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy,
Centre Director, Centre for Research Ethics and Ethical Deliberation,
Department of Social and Psychological Sciences/Research and Knowledge Transfer,
Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP
Email: reynoldp@edgehill.ac.uk

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
E-mail: er5@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of a larger series of ongoing conferences run as part of the Transformations Hub collection of research and publications projects. The Hub in turn belongs to the Critical Issues portfolio, which aim to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. It sits within the Transformations Hub.

All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume. Paper-givers may also be invited to submit revised versions of their papers to The Global Journal for Sensuality, Sexuality and the Erotic, an international inter-disciplinary peer reviewed Journal published by Interdisciplinary Press, of which Paul Reynolds is Editor in Chief.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/transformations/the-er...

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/transformations/the-er...