Imaginer le corps chrétien

Re-imagining the Christian Body 

Call for Papers

Interdisciplinary Conference University of Turku 2-3 November 2017

This conference concentrates on the ways in which the human body has been imagined and re-imagined in different Christian cultures at different times from Late Antiquity to present day. In Christianity the human body is often perceived as a privileged site not only for the God-Man relationship but also for the formation of and relationships within and between, communities of believers. These perceptions emerge from and generate different imaginaries of the body. Imagination can be understood as a human faculty that in many ways plays a central part in people’s religious lives and experiences. The notion does not imply something that is false or untrue but rather denotes the ways people go about constituting and perceiving their lived world and their immanent and transcendent environments and relationships. Therefore, Christian imaginaries of the body are not static but depend on the Christian culture in question and are subject to negotiation and change. They also are often central to religious schisms and conflicts but shared imaginaries of the body also have the capacity to unite.

This conference focuses especially upon changes and alterations: how and why does the Christian body become re-imagined in different Christian cultures? What is the role of such imaginations of the body in religious practice, art, museums, and science, for example? What are the methods and technologies for imagining the body in these contexts? What ethical and other consequences do different imaginations of the body and alterations in them have for Christians and for society at large?

Keynote speakers in the conference are:

Bonnie Effros, Department of History, University of Florida http://history.ufl.edu/directory/current-faculty/bonnie-effros/

Annelin Eriksen, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen http://www.uib.noien/persons/Annelin.Eriksen

We encourage submissions from different disciplines and from a variety of perspectives. Potential topics include, but are not restricted, to the following:

Historical imaginations of the body

Saints and relics

Body and identity

Gender, sexuality and imagination

Illness and health

Power and authority in limiting or expanding the imagination of bodies

Body in religious art

Christian utopias and dystopias and the body

Limits of imagining the body

Methods, practices and technologies for imagining the body

Epistemology and imagination of the body

Imagination as researcher’s tool

Proposals for individual papers should be sent to cscc@utu.fi by 20 June 2017. Please include in the submission a paper abstract of no more than 250 words and your name, affiliation and e-mail address.

Notifications of abstract acceptance will be sent by June 30.

The conference fee is 50 euros (reduced fee available for graduate students). This covers the programme, coffees and banquet on Thursday evening.

Conference homepage can be found at: reimagining.utu.fi.

The conference is organised by the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (CSCC) and the Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (TUCEM EMS).