[Discussion] Body / Inhabiting the World: An Early Modern Cultural Studies Conference

[Gonul]

Conference on Early Modern Embodiment at UNC (new plenary speaker) Call 
for Papers Inhabiting the Body / Inhabiting the World: An Early Modern 
Cultural Studies Conference March 19-20, 2004 University of North 
Carolina at Chapel Hill Plenary speakers will include John Sutton 
(Macquarie University, Sydney), Lorraine Daston (Director, Max Planck 
Institute for the History of Science), Steven Mullaney (University of 
Michigan), and Gail Kern Paster (Director, The Folger Shakespeare 
Library). This conference will focus on selfhood, embodiment and 
environment in the early modern world. Most broadly, the conference will 
consider what notions of selfhood are provoked by approaching a range of 
cultural texts from an "ecological" perspective - one in which the 
microcosmic "body" is seen as continuous with and permeated by the 
macrocosmic "environment." Papers from a range of disciplines, regional 
specializations and theoretical positions are invited. Topics might 
include: how the depiction of various "environments" is linked to the 
depiction of subjectivity; how representations of activity, repose, 
drinking, air, or emotion often emphasize (with and without anxiety) the 
malleable subject's openness to external agents; how the humoral 
emphasis on both bodily permeability and the fully somatic nature of 
cognition affect the way in which we understand mind-body relations; how 
the representation of early modern subjectivity is linked not only to 
notions of "inwardness," but to those of "outwardness" or liminality; 
and how both travel, within and across national boundaries, and 
cross-cultural encounters posed problems for conceptions of the subject 
predicated upon its environmental and cultural situatedness. Abstracts 
(maximum of 600 words) should be submitted by Nov. 15, 2003 to: Mary 
Floyd-Wilson <floydwil@email.unc.edu> and Garrett Sullivan <gas11@psu.edu>
-- Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr. Associate Professor of English 103 Burrowes 
Bldg. Penn State University University Park, PA 16802 Office: 
814-863-9585 Dept. Fax: 814-863-7285