Les corps (non)liés

(Un)bound Bodies: New Approaches

Call for papers 

Leeds IMC | 6th-9th July 2020

For decades, bodies have been a central framework for historical inquiries. No matter how much we try to distance ourselves from them, bodies remain at the centre and borders of scholarship. Medieval bodies were fluid and contradictory loci: bound and unbound, contained yet susceptible to a host of external physical and invisible forces. Bodily boundaries were paradoxically sharp, debated, and real, yet also fluid, permeable and imaginary.

This new strand at IMC 2020 seeks to investigate these ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ borders of the body and to complicate and critique existing narratives of ‘bound bodies’. As such, this strand is intentionally broad in its scope and embraces innovative and interdisciplinary approaches that push back, and go beyond, established methodologies. 

What? Twenty-minute papers; interest in a roundtable discussion also welcome

Who? Scholars from all career stages, eras and geographies. ECR and Queer approaches are particularly welcome. 

Suggested topics include (but are not limited to): 

· Un-binding scholarship: innovative approaches to bodies

· Bodily layers: ligaments, nerves, blood, bone, flesh, clothing

· Bodies and the cosmos: healing, magical influences, microcosm/macrocosm

· Bodies in flux: sensory experience, synaesthesia, bodily passions and emotions, cross dressing

· Bodily interactions: homosociality, sexuality, movement, legal systems

Please send titles and abstracts (maximum 250 words) together with a short biography and institutional affiliation (where relevant) to Jack Ford (jack.ford.13@ucl.ac.uk) or Lauren Rozenberg (lauren.rozenberg.14@ucl.ac.uk) by 15th September.

Please also see the attached file for the CfP poster. Anyone applying will have to bear in mind that they will need to be registered to attend the IMC and unfortunately, as a new strand, we cannot cover any registration fees or transportation costs. Further information about the IMC can be found here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/