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Libertinism and baroque performativity in the 17th century

Libertinism and baroque performativity in the 17th century

Publié le par Matthieu Vernet (Source : Karel Vanhaesebrouck)

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Internationalone-day symposium

LIBERTINISM AND BAROQUE PERFORMATIVITY IN THE17TH CENTURY

TuesdayNovember 16th 2010, Brussels.

Organizedby the IDeA Research Group (RITS department of drama and audiovisual arts,Erasmushogeschool Brussel) in collaboration with VUB and Université de ParisX-Nanterre, HAR Research group.

[Thesymposium will be preceded by a graduate seminar for MA- and PhD-students onMonday November 15th 2010.]

Keynotes byJeremy W. Webster (Ohio University) and Christian Biet (Université de Paris X –Nanterre, IUF).

In Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery,a Restoration closet drama attributed to John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester(1647-1680) and posthumously published in 1684, Bolloxian, King of Sodom,prescribes sodomy as the sole acceptable sexual practice. This simple andstraightforward pornographic joke serves as the starting point of a burlesque andsatirical parable in which Rochester reveals the libidinous nature statereigning at the court of Charles II, while at the same time radically andunequivocally appealing to the reader's imagination. Sodom is only one of many early modern examples in whichintellectual criticism and free-thinking go hand in hand with an erotic andsometimes pornographically grotesque universe in which, through its baroqueextravaganza, the distinction between the real and the fictional, between theprivate and the public disintegrates.

Thissymposium focuses on the 17th-century libertine (sub)culture thatseeks to combine the critique of everything public and political with a visualregime that lavishly indulges in the sensuous experience of baroquetheatricality. Libertinism is both a means of intellectual (self-)criticism andan utterly performative practice, it is both political reflexion and wilfultransgression. It is a locus of self-fashioning, on a sexual level(experimentation with possible sexual roles and identities) and on a politicallevel (as Jeremy Webster explains in PerformingLibertinism, the debate itself is an integral part of the availablepolitical discourse), as much as it is playful make-believe, joyfullyinvestigating the limits of representation itself. Within this complex bias ofseemingly conflicting interests the physical body takes up a central role.

Exactly this libertine body will be at the heart ofthis symposium, which takes a double goal as its starting point. It will address and question the culture of libertinism in terms of baroqueperformativity in which notions such as immersion and transgression arekey-points of investigation. In other words: how does libertine discourseproduce the effects it names (and shows)? And, secondly, this symposium seeksto investigate the role and the place ofthe baroque body in all its performative aspects (the burlesque body, thepolitical-theological body, the satirical body, the pornographic body). Wewelcome any contributions addressing one or both of these questions through thepresentation of concrete case studies that might be related to early modernlibertine life in Europe, particularly in France and England.

Please send yourabstract (250 words) and a short biographical notice to karel.vanhaesebrouck@ehb.be BEFORE September 1st. The definitiveprogram will be published on September 20th.