Daily Archives: 10 October 2014

ANZAMEMS Conference Panel: Facial Feeling – Call For Papers

Call for Papers for a panel session at Tenth Biennial ANZAMEMS Conference, to be held at the University of Queensland on the 14–18 July 2015:

Facial Feeling

How does the face signify or express emotion in medieval and early modern culture? Papers are invited for one or perhaps two multidisciplinary panels that would consider the face as a site of passionate or emotional feeling in medieval and early modern culture, whether in textual, visual or material form. How do medieval and early modern poets, dramatists, musicians, writers, thinkers, artists, philosophers and theologians conceptualise the face (human? divine? angelic? demonic? animal?) and its capacity to express, signify, or conceal emotion? How does the face “speak” to us? What is the relationship between iconic, indexical and individualised emotions?

Papers may wish to consider the following topics:

  • Emotional encounters between the faces of the human and the non-human, or faces of different ethnicities
  • The relation between text and image in the representation of emotion (e.g. banderoles expressing words or lyrics in visual images, emblem books, etc. )
  • Visual representations of the faces of the virtues, vices and passions (in manuscripts, printed books, woodcuts, painting, sculpture, stained glass, etc.)
  • Metaphors, similes, and other forms of rhetorical discourse about the face
  • Literary and dramatic descriptions and characterisations of facial emotion
  • Medieval and early modern philosophical, theological, scientific or medical discourse about the face

Preliminary inquiries are welcome, but the final deadline for a 200-word proposal and brief biographical note (not more than 50 words) is Monday, October 27th, Inquiries and/or proposals should be emailed to: sjtrigg@unimelb.edu.au.

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-projects/speaking-faces-describing-the-facial-expression-of-emotion.aspx?tax_3140=3151&page=2

ANZAMEMS Conference website: http://anzamems.org/?page_id=186

The History of the Body – Call For Papers

The History of the Body: Approaches and Directions
One day Colloquium
Institute of Historical Research, London
May 16, 2015

Many historians have pointed out that “the body” is a worryingly broad historical theme, covering topics as diverse as medicine, dancing, gesture, clothing, sexuality, gender, childhood, animals, ageing, class, death, food, race, sport, and spirituality. This one day colloquium asks if any broader approaches and directions hold these themes together. Following on from the colloquium ‘What is the History of the Body?’, held at the Institute of Historical Research in March 2014, we invite proposals for papers on any aspect of the history of the body.

Has the history of the body run its course, or are there topics that remain under-explored? How have the sources historians turn to changed, and how have their theoretical motivations evolved? Does ‘experience’ still matter, or are discourses the central concern? What relationship does the history of the body have to other recent historiographical trends, such as the history of emotions and the history of the senses? What different shapes has the historiography of the body taken in different parts of the world? Is there value to a ‘post-human’ turn in the history of the body, and in what senses do monsters, animals, supernatural beings, or machines belong to the history of the body? These questions point to a fundamental problem: is there, or should there be, a history of the body?

Papers should consist of case studies with wider implications for how historians do history about bodies. We particularly invite postgraduate and early career researchers to submit proposals, and welcome papers on a variety of geographical areas and periods.

Proposals for 20 minute papers should be sent to Kate Imy (Rutgers) and Will Pooley (University of Oxford) at historyofthebodyihr@gmail.com by December 1, 2014.

Supported by the Institute of Historical Research.