The aim of this two-day conference is to bring together critical engagements with representations of 'the body' in literature and film produced by women in France since the mid-1990s. There is still much conflict about the way women's bodies are represented in contemporary culture, and women's own cultural production has not been free from this conflict. Visual treatments are often considered to be the most problematical, especially given the politicization of the gaze in late twentieth-century theory, but recent literary representations of women's bodies by women have also been highly controversial.
The concept of 'writing the body' was a key issue in feminist cultural practice in France in the 1970s. Thirty years on, this conference seeks both to re-visit and to re-evaluate some of the complex issues still at stake in the representation of women's (and men's?) bodies. It will investigate how the body is being constructed and/or theorized in, by and/or across different textual practices, and invite reflection on how particular practices in turn either delimit or open up what is representable. It will also address more recent theoretical perspectives such as the contribution of feminist cultural geography and the impact of new technologies. Publication for selected contributions will be sought.
Proposals (max 250 words) for papers of twenty minutes' duration are encouraged in, but not limited to, the following areas, and suggestions of other categories are welcome:
- abortion
- abused bodies
- adolescent bodies
- advertising and the body
- ageing bodies
- beauty
- bodies in pieces
- body art
- cosmetic surgery
- death
- deformity
- disease
- eating disorders
- erotic bodies
- ethnic bodies
- maternal bodies
- migrant bodies
- nudity
- pregnancy
- queer bodies
- reproductive technologies and the body
- religion and the body
- sexualities
- sexualized bodies
- technology and the body
- transgressive bodies
- ugliness
- violence and the body
Deadline for proposals is 28 February 2003, but early submissions are welcome.
Please send abstracts to:
Gill Rye
Institute of Romance Studies
University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU
U.K.
gill.rye@dial.pipex.com
or
Carrie Tarr,
4 Glebe Road,
Barnes,
London SW13 0EA
U.K.
c.tarr@kingston.ac.uk