CFP: Early Modern Bodies: Material vs. Immaterial, Inside and Outside, Dead and Alive
RSA 2014, New York, March 27-29, 2014.
Deadline: May 30, 2013

CFP (up to three panels envisioned):
The shared understanding of the body as by and large socially produced and culturally constructed is a recurrent theme in the often divergent methodological approaches to the history of the human body. As part of an ongoing process of semiosis, the significance of body imagery is determined by specific sites in a historical and material world.
In an attempt to bring to bear new methodological approaches and understandings of the body, we invite papers that consider how early modern cultures conceptualized, constructed, and represented the human body. Topics may include: early modern medical and theological understanding of the body; the relationship between the body and selfhood; gendered bodies; changing visual approaches to the depiction of the human body; the relationship between art and healing of the body; the body’s emotional display and notions of decorum; body parts, markings, and modifications; and bodily effluvia. We encourage papers that consider the early modern body in diverse geographical regions and in a cross-cultural fashion.

Please submit a 150-word abstract, along with a list of keywords, and a one-page c.v. (max. 300 words) to Heather Graham and Lauren Grace Kilroy (hgraham5msudenver.edu, lgkilroyme.com) by May 30.

Panel link: http://www.rsa.org/blogpost/947529/163491/Early-Modern-Bodies-Material-vs-Immaterial-Inside-and-Outside-Dead-and-Alive
RSA website: www.rsa.org