The principal aim of ‘The Body’ conference is to encourage doctoral researchers to consider how ‘The Body’ may come to bear on their own subjects of research. ‘The Body’ is intended to encompass ideology and society, e.g. the physical body used as an analogy or metaphor for the social body, as well as for a corpus of knowledge, legal person, ‘person’ of the state, the body politic, and the body as a site of contention in sexual politics.

Proposals for panels and papers are invited from PhD students across Wales, the UK and overseas. Current panels include:

Body and Ritual (religious ritual, cultural ritual, the supernatural, folklore)
Body and Landscape (space, urban landscape, environment, cultural sites, interaction between people and heritage, communities) Body and Performance (dance, music, display, performance art, gesture)
Representing the Body (media, art, art and description) Body and Identity (body as a source of identity, cross cultural perceptions of the body, connection between body and identity, gender)
The Body as a Metaphor / Language and the Body (literature, non-verbal communication/body language, linguistics, Welsh Culture/language)
Active and Interactive Bodies (sport, war, physical and social interaction, community)
Body Politic (person of the state, body as state)
Rights of the Body (human rights, humanitarianism)
Body of Knowledge (corpus, memory)
Clothing the Body (body art, piercing, tattoos, clothing, fashion history)

The deadline for proposals is Thursday 10 April 2008. To submit a paper, please send a 200-word abstract to BodyConference@cf.ac.uk

The Body Conference is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Cardiff University.