Panel for College Art Association 2009 (Los Angeles, 2/25-2/28/09)
Deadline for paper proposals: May 9, 2008

Clothing, Flesh, Bone: Visual Culture above and below the Skin

Chairs: Victoria L. Rovine, University of Florida, Box 115801,
Gainesville, FL 32611-5801; and Sarah Adams, University of Michigan,
3502 Barton Farm Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48105

This panel broadly explores new approaches to the study of
visual culture that depicts or adorns the human body. We seek
papers that address representations of the body in all media,
from sculpture, dress, and performance to medical methodologies
and mortuary practices. While papers may examine artistic
representations of the body and the use of the body itself as
artistic medium, they also may push beyond humanities models
to consider the body as it exists below the skin as flesh,
blood, and viscera. Papers might explore the body in visual culture
from medical, physiological, or biological perspectives.
How is the body depicted across cultures, and what do those
depictions reveal about shifting concepts of the medical body?
How is the biological body reflected in diverse media? How
does the history of medicine and science itself influence
representations of the human body? Does adornment that conceals,
reveals, or enhances the body reflect histories and beliefs about
the biological body?

Please send paper proposals to the panel chairs by MAY 9, 2008