Call for Contributions: Expressions of the Body


 

bakerProposals are invited for Expressions of the Body, a collection of essays and creative work by international writers and researchers working on topics related to representations of the human body in African literature, poetry, film, art and theatre.

Whilst the concept of ‘the body’ implies a natural entity, in recent years attention has turned to issues of bodily subjection, appropriation and agency, which have been explored from a range of perspectives; literary, anthropological, sociological and political. Recent discussion has moved far away from simply writing about the body in terms of its biological state, with the focus instead on material bodies, consumer bodies, sexualised and social bodies, and most recently on the cyborg or virtual body. Psychoanalytic, genetic, feminist and queer readings, among others, have demonstrated how the subject of ‘the body’ can serve a number of critical perspectives and the range of approaches shows the extent of the functions and roles it fulfils.

We invite contributions from writers and researchers which address any aspect of the representation of the body in all its forms: black, white, sexualised, desexualised, young, old, threatened or threatening, beautiful, disgusting, broken, disabled, deviant or simply different. The contributions will be linked thematically to form a coherent volume of creative writing and new academic research that reflects current trends in the study of the body and, more broadly, within the field of African Studies.

Please send your 300 word proposal for papers of 6-8000 words to Charlotte Baker, Lancaster University: c.baker@lancaster.ac.uk by 7 January 2008. Enquiries and expressions of interest are welcome.

 

Image courtesy of Chris Starace, www.fon-is-fun.org

 


FASS

Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, County College, Lancaster University, LA1 4YD, UK