Body Politics. Zeitschrift für Körpergeschichte (Web)

Proposals not later than March 15, 2015

The body plays a prominent role in a number of recent contributions to urban studies and urban history. During the last twenty-five years, scholars have written about a variety of issues that put the human body at the center of their analysis, such as the sensual experience in cities or urban forms of biopolitics. Richard Sennett’s book Flesh and Stone, for instance, plays a prominent role in this research context, as it addresses the relationship between urban history and a history of the body. While such works provide an important point of departure for thinking about a history of urban bodies, this special issue seeks to offer a fresh approach to historical research on the city and the body: It will focus on the social formation of the body’s materiality in cities, thus exploring new ways of thinking about the relationship between urban history and the history of the body.

We encourage contributions that focus on the question of power and its distribution in urban spaces. Contributions can consider different fields of practice such as dancing, housing, or work, as well as different regional contexts. They should aim to help to answer the overarching question of this special issue: How were different bodies ruled in different cities during the twentieth century? The time period addressed by contributions can therefore range from the late nineteenth to the twentieth century. With this temporal focus, the special issue seeks to bridge a gap between current themes in urban history, such as the history of suburbanization, and current themes in the history of the body, such as the social impact of cybernetics. We particularly welcome contributions that help to provincialize “Western” urban history by analyzing the history of cities outside of Europe and North America.

Body Politics accepts articles in both English and German. Accepted articles will go through a double blind peer-review process. Please send a proposal of approximately 500 words until March 15, 2015 to kontakt@bodypolitics.de.