12th Annual Graduate Conference on Language and Literature
McGill University, Montreal
Theme: Permeability and Selfhood
March 11-12, 2006=20

This call for papers is for a panel to be held at Permeability and Selfhood=
,
the McGill Graduate Conference on Language and Literature, which will take
place March 11-12 at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

------
=20
Body Play: The Changing Relationship Between the Self and Body in the Long
Eighteenth Century
=20
Papers are being solicited for a panel that will explore the role of the
body in the articulation of identity within eighteenth-century literature.
As Thomas Laqueur has demonstrated, the role of the physical body with
regards to categories of selfhood shifted dramatically during the
Restoration and eighteenth century. From the mutable body of the ancien
r=E9gime of selfhood (to follow cultural historian Dror Wahrman=B9s
terminology), which not only was not a foundation for identity but, with it=
s
possibilities for subversion and play, was as often a source of anxiety in
early eighteenth-century literature as it was a source of freedom and
possibility, to the late eighteenth-century conception of the body as a
rigid biological foundation, understandings of the role of the body shifted
to reflect the ideological needs of the time.
=20
This panel seeks to investigate the literary representations of the
relationship between the body and self during the long eighteenth century
and, in particular, to explore the theoretical possibilities raised by the
dramatically diverse representations of this relationship that were
available during the period.
=20
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
=AD representations of the pregnant body
=AD pre-modern representations of sexual and racial mutability
=AD links between eighteenth-century representations of the body and
current constructivist (e.g. Judith Butler) views of sex and the body
=AD late eighteenth-century essentialist representations of the body as a
foundation for the categories of selfhood
=AD literary representations of the relationship between the categories o=
f
gender, race, and/or class and the body
=AD masquerade or the ability of clothes/disguise to efface the physical
=20
While the focus is on the literature of the period, theoretically informed
readings and papers influenced by cultural history are encouraged and
welcomed.
=20
Please send abstracts (approx. 300 words) by January 5, 2006 to Erin Keatin=
g
at ekeating_at_alcor.concordia.ca.

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Tue Nov 08 2005 - 17:14:04 EST