[Discussion] CFP: Körperkontrolle/Kontrollkörper (gr ad)

[Gonul Pultar]

From: Catherine Sprecher <ccsprech@uchicago.edu>

Call for Papers

Körperkontrolle/Kontrollkörper:
 From Regulation to Excess in Fictional Models and Social Practices.
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference hosted by the 
Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago
March 11-12, 2005.

Attempts to understand the relationship between the body, control, and
sociopolitical life are at least as old as Plato and Aristotle, and 
significant among them are the contributions offered by German-speaking 
thinkers. In recent decades, commentators such as Foucault and Butler 
have drawn upon Hegel, Nietzsche and Freud in theorizing ways in which 
habits, technologies and institutional practices control the individual 
body, the social body and the body politic. In its interdisciplinary 
exploration of control in the Germanic context, our conference is 
interested in both documented social practices and fictional models 
across media such as literature, film and painting, from the Middle Ages 
to the present. By exploring both controlled and controlling bodies, we 
hope to gain a better understanding of the uncertain ontological status 
of control with respect to regulation and excess. How are the mechanisms 
of control involved in the very excesses they purportedly regulate? What 
role does control play in generative/creative processes?  Does control 
function through repetition, reproduction, and suppression, or does 
control force intensification of bodily experience, pushing the body to 
transgress? How is excess regulated, experienced and represented? 
Furthermore, how do different disciplines conceptualize and represent 
the phenomenon of control?

Scholars from the Humanities and Social Sciences are encouraged to 
interpret the conference theme broadly and innovatively.

Graduate students from all disciplines working in the German-speaking 
context are invited to submit paper abstracts of 350-500 words in German 
or English. Conference presentations are to be given in English and 
should not exceed 20 minutes. Abstracts must be received by 15 December, 
2004.  Authors of accepted papers will be notified via email by 31 
January, 2005. Please email your abstract as a Word attachment to:

uc-germanic-conference@listhost.uchicago.edu.

In the body of your email, please include the following: title of paper,
author’s name, institutional and departmental affiliation, e-mail 
address and primary phone number.  Accommodation will be provided for 
conference participants.  For further information about the conference, 
please email to the above address.

Organized by Darren Ilett, Kym Lanzetta, Catherine Sprecher and Terri Zhu.


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