cfp.english.upenn.edu

TALKING BODIES: IDENTITY, SEXUALITY, REPRESENTATION
An international, interdisciplinary conference

talkingbodies@chester.ac.uk

HOST: Dr Emma L. E. Rees, the Department of English, University of Chester, UK

DATES: 26th-28th March, 2013

VENUE: The University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester, CH1 4BJ, UK

http://talkingbodiesblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/announcement-and-call-...

20-minute papers are invited on topics related to the themes of the conference. Scholars, practitioners, researchers and postgraduate students from a wide range of disciplines (art, performance, art history, social history, and history of science, literary criticism, theology, (eco)feminism, political theory, medicine, jurisprudence, and more) are invited to submit proposals. Questions to be considered include (but are absolutely not limited to):

•How does the idea of the ‘taboo’ impact on self-perception? How do writers and artists articulate that taboo?
•How do visual artists represent the complexities of the embodied self? Or, how can writers, performers, or musicians do so?
•How is sexual identity articulated by and in the body?
•What happens when the ‘talking body’ conflicts with the ‘talking mind’?
•How do (consensual or non-consensual) body modifications silence the body, or ‘allow’ it to ‘talk’?
•What relationships do erotica, porn and the ‘obscene’ have with the embodied self?
•How does representation of the body facilitate political activism?
•Where do gender and ideology intersect on the site of ‘the body’?
•Is language ever sufficient in talking about bodies?

In addition to the conference presentations, there will be an exciting feminist keynote speaker; a talk from an editor from a prominent publishing house; a conference ‘Marketplace’ with book and craft stalls; a feminist pub quiz; a small exhibition by artists from the ‘Birth Rites’ Collection; and a reading/performance by the pioneering, Brighton-based ‘Trans-Mangina Monologues’ group.

ABSTRACTS of no more than 250 words should be emailed to the conference organiser, Dr Emma L. E. Rees, at talkingbodies@chester.ac.uk

DEADLINE for submission of abstracts: Friday 30th November, 2012