Reading Bodies and Embodied Readings in Modernist Prose and Poetry: (Inter-)Cultural Experience

deadline for submissions: 
January 25, 2025
full name / name of organization: 
Tatiana Venediktova / Moscow State University

Roundtable: Reading Bodies and Embodied Readings in Modernist Prose and Poetry: (Inter-) Cultural Experience

May 23, 2025

 

deadline for submissions: 

01.25.2025

full name / name of organization: 

Department of Discourse and Communication Studies, Moscow State University (Russia)

School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)

College of Foreign Languages, Huaqiao University (China)

 

This virtual roundtable panel is designed as an opportunity for scholars to share their ideas, diverse perspectives, and insights on the embodied dimension of reading literary modernism through open discussion and collaborative exchange.

As teachers in the humanities, we find ourselves poised in between an established literary canon and newer generations of young readers who prefer viewing, listening, and playing to regular reading. For contemporary readers, embodied reading refers to a new approach to reading that prioritizes the holistic engagement of the body, rather than solely the intellect, and enhances comprehension and interpretation of a text. Physical movement, acting out scenes, and using multisensory experiences are employed to create a deeper connection with the work.

We are also caught between the self-consciously «Western» canon taught and studied as literary history and broader receptive practices that are culturally «out of sync» and nurtured by a world where modernist symbolic geography no longer applies. As scholars we also find ourselves in a difficult moment when the virtues and claims of interpretative reading have come under question, whereas the alternative theory of reading—the so-called “experiential” or enactivist paradigm—is under discussion. Should we not use our unique situatedness to address a large, multidimensional problem—related to literary and cultural aesthetics as well as to anthropology and cognitive theory—that is likely to remain with us in the future?

 

Potential topics focus on literary modernist dealings with bodies:

  • Reading as Multisensory
  • Enactive and Affective Responses in Reading Practices
  • Reading as a Multi/Intermedia Experience
  • The Materiality of Reading: The Text as a Physical Body 
  • Somatic Reading vs. Reading as a Disembodied Activity
  • Somaesthetics: Bodily Engagement with Texts
  • Reading Experience in Terms of Embodied Cognition
  • The Representation of Reading in Different Media Practices
  • The Dynamics of Pleasure: from Non-interactive to Interactive Fiction
  • The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Sensory Empathy, Feeling-with
  • Film Adaptation as an Embodied Re-reading.

 

We welcome diverse forms of engagement:

We welcome papers that explore the role of embodiment in the context of modernist literature. Completed papers should be short (approx. 15min. per presenter) to allow time for discussion and sharing among panelists and the audience.

You can participate without presenting a paper. We are looking for individuals to join a discussion panel where they can contribute their insights and perspectives without needing to submit a formal research paper.  

Please submit proposals by 01.25.2025

via email to BOTH

Tatiana Venediktova  philol.discours@gmail.com

Bowen Wang wangbw@sjtu.edu.cn

 

Organizers:

Tatiana Venediktova (Moscow State University, Russia)

Bowen Wang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)

Natalia Morzhenkova (Huaqiao University, China)