Sideian Poetics: Making Sense (51st Annual Congress on Medieval Studies: May 12-15, 2016)

full name / name of organization: 
International Sidney Society
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Sponsored by the International Sidney society, "Sidneian Poetics: Making Sense" invites attention to the role of bodies and bodily sensation in Sidneian poetics, ethics, and epistemologies. How do Philip and Mary Sidney and/or their literary admirers and imitators imagine the pleasures, problems, and possibilities of embodiment: literal and metaphorical, individual and corporate? How reliably do bodies function in their works as instruments of knowledge; and by extension, as instantiations and/or interrogations of political, religious, and intellectual authority? Do some bodies matter more than others? If so, how and why? This session is designed foster conversation on these questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including (but not limited to) studies of gender, sexuality, book history, race, religion, and the history of science.

The International Sidney Society is a non-profit, academic organization that fosters and promotes scholarship and teaching on the lives, works, and cultural contexts of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) and of writers and thinkers closely associated with his extended family's familiar circle. Unique among literary organizations for its focus on this literary, cultural, and political group centered on a prominent family, the Society includes members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. The society sponsors sessions at several academic conferences, publishes the Sidney Journal, and promotes teaching and research related to the Sidney Circle.

Please submit abstracts of 250 words along with a Congress participant information form.

Abstract deadline: September 23, 2016

Participant Information Form: http://wmich.edu/medieval/files/medieval-pif-2016.pdf