2013 WiP Conference: The Flesh of the World
17th Annual Work-in-Progress Conference
School of English, Media Studies and Art History
The University of Queensland
17-19 October 2013
Online registration opens on the 16th of September and closes on the 16th of October.
Keynote: Professor Angela Ndalianis, University of Melbourne
Call for Papers: The 2013 Work in Progress Conference (WiP2013) draws together multi-disciplinary criticism that engages with representations of the body. We consider ‘the body’ to be a ‘work-in-progress’ itself, emerging through its engagement with the world. In particular, WiP2013 questions how the body’s unique experience of the world is in turn creatively expressed through diverse aesthetic forms. We welcome papers that seek to question the definition of the body. We invite submissions for individual papers of 20 minutes, with 10 minutes of questions to follow. Proposals for 10 or 20 minute readings from creative works are welcomed.
Focus Questions: Why has “the body” enjoyed enduring popularity across the humanities as a site for critical enquiry? How do “bodies” of critical theory—for example feminism, postcolonialism, queer theory—intersect with physical and textual bodies? How does the sensuous experience, or physical denial of the body inform our experience of the world? How do differences in bodies—gender, ethnicity, sexuality—modify worldly experience? How do advances in technology inform the representation and experience of textual bodies? What is the effect of environmental or political change on bodily experience? Who is the “author” of the text? Does the auteur leave a bodily trace in their work? What is this implication for textual reception? How do the competing concepts of “reality” and “fantasy” modify the materiality and experience of the body and the world?
Keywords: the senses – modes of vision – flesh – tactility – taste and food – emotional response – phenomenology – embodiment – synaesthesia – landscape – movement and motility – race – gender – the cyborg – science fiction and fantasy worlds – reality – blood – disability – bodily dissonance – performativity - contemporary and historical portraiture – trauma – textual materiality – absence of the body – disembodiment – meat – physicality – death and the body – biography – life writing – autobiography – poetics of self – selfies – physical enhancement – evolution – body – abject – animal – revulsion – sensuality – violence – monstrosity – grotesque – snapchat – appetite – sexuality –gluttony – sloth
Keynote: Angela Ndalianis is an Associate Professor in Cinema and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. She specialises in Hollywood cinema, digital media and the convergence of popular forms such as films, computer games, comic books and theme park spaces. Her research also explores transdisciplinary and transhistorical approaches to entertainment forms and their history, and she is especially interested in the baroque dimensions of contemporary culture. She both teaches and publishes in these areas.She is Associate Editor of the international refereed journal Animation: an Interdisciplinary Journal and Editor of the online journal Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media. Angela is also on the Trustee Board of the National Gallery of Victoria and on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Comics Studies, U.S.A.
A 200 word abstract, along with a brief biographical note, should be submitted to the conference convenors at uq.wip2013@gmail.com by 1 September 2013.Registration opens on 16 September 2013 and closes on 16 October 2013.
Papers presented by EMSAH postgraduate and honours students are eligible to be considered for the Dr John McCulloch Memorial Prize, worth $1000. Eligible students must register and submit their paper by 4pm on 4 October 2013.
The conference program can be downloaded here.
Where: St Leo’s College, The University of Queensland [http://www.uq.edu.au/], St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Australia
Cost: $80 (includes catering)
Registration: http://www.uq.edu.au/secure/events/emsah2013/form/ers.php?e=2&f=2
Enquiries: uq.wip2013@gmail.com
Cancellations: Registration cancellations up to and including 16 October will be refunded less a $25.00 administrative fee; there is no refund available for registration cancellations on or after 17 October.