CFP: Bodies Beyond Borders: The Circulation of Anatomical Knowledge, 1750-1950

Leuven, 7-9 January 2015

Bodies Beyond Borders is a scholarly conference on the circulation of anatomical knowledge that indicates the heighted interest in the history of anatomy in Leuven. This conference fits in with two current projects on the history of anatomy in Leuven. The first is a research project on Anatomy, scientific authority and the visualized body in medicine and culture (Belgium, 1780-1930), that is conducted in our research group, Cultural History since 1750. The project is supervised by Kaat Wils, and co-supervised by Raf de Bont, Jo Tollebeek and Geert Vanpaemel, and has two PhD fellows, Tinne Claes and Veronique Deblon and one postdoctoral fellow, Pieter Huistra. This research project takes as its object the history of anatomy in Belgium in the ‘long nineteenth century’.

Secondly, Leuven will celebrate a Vesalius year in 2014-2015, to commemorate the 500th birthday of Andreas Vesalius. The mainstay of the programme will be the exhibition Unravelling the body. The theatre of anatomy, of which Geert Vanpaemel will serve as curator. This exhibition studies Vesalius himself, but also his work influenced representations of the human body and the tradition of anatomical research. These themes will also be included in Bodies Beyond Borders, our conference that takes up the question: how does anatomical knowledge move from site to another? Whereas our research project focuses specifically on Belgium, the conference will have a broad geographical scope in its topics as well as its speakers.

Call for Papers

How does anatomical knowledge move from one site to another? Between 1750 and 1950 the study of anatomy underwent great changes, as a part of the development of scientific medicine, through public anatomies, as well as in the interplay between the two. How did these changes spread geographically? How did knowledge about newly discovered lesions travel from one hospital to another? What was the role of anatomical models in the spread of the public consciousness of syphilis, for example? Was the spread of this knowledge hindered by national borders, or did anatomical knowledge cross those borders easily? These questions are concerned with what James Secord terms ‘knowledge in transit’. To seek an answer to these questions, a conference focusing on the circulation of anatomical knowledge between 1750 and 1950 will be organized in Leuven from 7-9 January 2015. Confirmed speakers are Sam Alberti, Sven Dupré, Rina Knoeff, Helen MacDonald, Anna Maerker, Chloé Pirson, Natasha Ruiz-Gómez and Michael Sappol.

Knowledge does not move by itself – it has to be carried. To better understand how anatomical knowledge moves from place to place, we will seek to trace the trajectories of its bearers. Some of those bearers were tied very specifically to the discipline of anatomy: wax models, preserved bodies (or parts of them) or anatomical atlases, for example. These objects are polysemic in nature, tending to have different meanings in different contexts and for different audiences. It makes the question of how anatomical knowledge travelled all the more pertinent if, for example, wax models that went from a Florentine museum to a Viennese medical training institution underwent a shift in meaning en route. But bearers of knowledge less specifically tied to anatomy were equally important: articles, books and individual persons to name but a few examples.

For our conference we welcome contributions regarding the geographical movement of anatomical knowledge between 1750 and 1950. We are equally interested in ‘scientific’ and ‘public’ anatomy – as well as in exchanges between the two domains. Therefore, we encourage contributions about bearers of anatomical knowledge as wide-ranging as persons (scientists, students, freaks), objects (models, preparations, bodies or body parts), visual representations (films, atlases, wall maps) and practices (dissections, travelling exhibitions), as well as their (transnational and intranational) trajectories.

Paper proposals must be submitted by 1 June 2014.

Please send a 300-word abstract to Pieter Huistra. 

Notification of acceptance: early July, 2014.

CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Re-framing Punishment and the Body

Sunday 1st September – Tuesday 3rd September 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations

What is Punishment? Is it about hurting the body? Or is it about pleasure? Or is it neither? There are those who argue that punishment is a mechanism for controlling deviance and deterring crime. Others argue that it is a method that balances the scales of justice. While still others argue that it is a form of controlling behaviour and an expression of power. Accordingly research today is often focused on punishment in terms of offenders, the offence, the state and legal codification. Yet in the 19th century the French sociologist Durkheim maintained that rituals of punishment were not necessarily concerned with the criminal. He argued that punishment involved reordering or making amends for a situation in a way that demonstrated group norm and strengthened moral boundaries – it rebuilt solidarity and social order. More recently Smith (2008) argued that ‘punishment is an activity and communicative process involving the sending and receiving of messages, ambiguity or the analysis of multiple and intersecting, complex and layered systems of meaning’. Overall this suggests that the concept of Punishment is a meaningful site of contestation. Therefore the aim of the project is to develop different ways of understanding the complexity of punishment and/or the body from a variety of perspectives, approaches and practitioner experiences. We encourage unique approaches to punishment in terms of the body and boundary control, whether it is control of evil, the politically subversive, the economically disruptive, or punishment in pursuit of system stability or marginalisation of the liminal. Papers might also consider the operation and consequences of wrongdoing and various forms of societal/social punishment. Accordingly the project welcomes papers, work-in-progress and pre-formed panels from diverse areas of academic study, as well as practitioners. Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited, but not limited to, issues broadly related to any of the following themes:

-Changing notions of punishment over time or in particular spaces
-Punishment issues relating to defining the contours of disgust, desire, dread, or the abject
-Body horror and forms of Punishment
-Desire and Punishment (addiction, BDSM, modification, fashion)
-Punishment and its relationship with Pain, Fear and Death
-Punishment, Ritual and Religion/spirituality
-Punishment and Strategies of Control /Order in everyday life or business
-Punishment, War, Enforcement, Education and/or the Family
-Literature, Art, Popular culture and Punishment
-Cultural approaches to punishment
-Abuses of Punishment

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 22nd March 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 21st June 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words. E-mails should be entitled: PUNISH3 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Shona Hill and Shilinka Smith 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here. 

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Body Horror: Contagion, Mutation, Transformation

Monday 11th February – Wednesday 13th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentation:

The body. My body. This thing which is with me all day, every day, from my birth to my death. This flesh which is me. My intimate life-long friend.

In our day-to-day living we have no reason to question or to doubt our bodies. Until the bond of trust is shaken or broken. Something happens. To my body. Something inside: going wrong. A betrayal: a turning against: an unwelcome and unwanted change. From which there is no escape, no running away, nowhere to hide. This is happening to me.

This inter- and transdisciplinary forum aims to explore the many layers and levels of body horror, and the ways in which bodies can become horrifying. Given the diversity and scope of this theme we welcome

~ papers, panels, workshops, reports

~ case studies

~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings

~ works of art; works of music

Key aspects for discussion will include, but not be limited to:

Biological horror. Organic horror
Betrayal; the body turns against you
Something inside; no escape
Change and transformation: the role of time
Pain, suffering, agony, the scream, contortion, mutation and mutilation
Obscene bodies
Disease. Infection, contagion, invasion, virus, the parasite
Surgery, cosmetic surgery, body sculpture; huffing, tattooing, piercing; body art
Pleasure, perversion, fetish
Deformity; disability, affliction
Hybridity
Violence, brutality, torture
Rape
Innards, guts, organs
Dismemberment; instruments of the body’s destruction
Wounded bodies, dying bodies
Post body horror

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers and presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th September 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper, if appropriate, should be submitted by Friday 23rd November 2012.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: Body Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chair


Rob Fisher

The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Time, Space and Body

Monday 11th February – Wednesday 13th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

While the categories of space and time have been ways of understanding and analysing humanity, the body has often been an ‘absent presence’ (Shilling, 2003). Moreover, in shaping a ‘natural’ attitude about our existence we have been preoccupied with the role of the mind. We have tended to organise our perception of the world by dividing not only the ability to acquire knowledge away from bodily awareness but also the embodied lived being away from its death. This form of organising knowledge acquisition tends to hide the multi-faceted nature of space, time and the body as it is ‘suspended in webs of significance’ (Geertz, 1973). However, by observing humans existence and interaction within these ‘webs’ it becomes apparent that societies consist of people who are embodied, ‘enselved’ and constantly participating in interactive rituals in time and space which include, for example, forms of power, inspiration and elimination. These rituals, be they individualised or participatory, can be explored within specific tasks. As Turner (2004:38) argues ‘every society is confronted by four tasks: the reproduction of populations in time, the regulation of bodies in space, the restraint of the interior body through disciplines and the representation of the exterior body in social space.’

This new conference project focuses on inter- and multi-disciplinary discussion and seeks to explore these tasks in order to open up a dialogue about the beliefs, representations and socio-political practices, of space, time and the body. We encourage presenters to use their own research interests as the foundation to explore inter-connections between their topic and its relationship(s) with time, space and/or the body. We are not expecting papers from experts in all three areas of space, time and the body, but presenters will be expected to discuss how their research relates to at least two out of the three ways of understanding humanity. We seek submissions from a range of disciplines including social geography and anthropology, literary studies, religious studies, archaeology, media and audience studies, architecture and planning, the visual and creative arts, classics and philosophy, social and natural sciences, business studies and politics.

Recognising that different disciplines express themselves in different mediums, we welcome traditional papers, workshop proposals and other forms of performance (as can be accommodated in the space provided). Submissions are sought on different aspects and/or relationships between any combination of space, time or the body or on how space and time are constructed in order to affect, effect, order and/or control the body or vice versa.

Topics could include, but are not limited to:

Cyclical, spiral, dreamtime, memory or linear time and its relation to space and the body
Representations of time, space and the body in popular culture, literature, art and language
How changing attitudes to time, space or the body effect attitudes toward pain, death, suffering, religion, family, gender, sexuality, disability or fashion
Non-human bodies in space and time
The ‘body politic’ or the political body in space and time
Time, ‘performativity’ and identity
Technology and futurology
Time and the spatiality of movement
Monstrosity in space and the body
Body modification and maintenance: past, present and future
Architecture: its adaption to changing attitudes towards the embodiment of time
City planning and change over time or terrain
Time and Space as Everyday Life
Film, theatre and TV: music and mis-en-scene in relation to time and/or space
Language and embodied/disembodied characters in novels, films, theatre and TV
Working and/or power relations in time and space
Space, time and the body in computer games
Altered consciousness, spirituality and ritual
Indigenous cultures and cosmologies of space, time and the body
The impact of space and time upon the body
Monetising/economics of production between time, space and body
Legislative/legal constructions as related to time, space, body

We actively encourage participation from practitioners and non-academics with an interest in the topic as well as pre-formed three paper panels.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: TS+B1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Shona Hill and Shilinka Hill

Rob Fisher

The conference is part of the making Sense Of: programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.