Research and Study Center for Gender History, Department of History, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Time: 13.-15.10.2011
Venue: University of Graz, Austria
Deadline for proposals: 31.03.2011
Paper proposals must contain the title of the paper, an abstract of not more than 400 words (3,000 characters incl. spaces) and a short profile of the contributor. Proposals will be accepted until March 31st, 2011, at nina.kogler@uni-graz.at.

The history of the body has been a key topic in international women’s studies and gender studies since the 1970s. While debating the history of the body, gender theory fundamentally changed perspectives in anticipation of new theoretical approaches which would become increasingly important in the wake of the ‚cultural turn‘ in humanities and history later on.

In the 1980s, Barbara Duden called for a radical historicisation of the (female) body in „The woman beneath the Skin (Geschichte unter der Haut)“, whereas in the 1990s, Judith Butler argued in her books „Gender Trouble“ and „Bodies that matter“ that both gender and body should be considered as entirely cultural construed. The sometimes controversial theoretical debates of the 1990s have helped to clarify terms and definitions, as well as to further develop theoretical approaches, introducing a field of research into gender history which does not only focus on historical discourses regarding the (gendered) body. Rather, it also deals with body practices, processes of condensation, and the affirmation as well as subversion of body and gender identities. Leslie Adelson’s definition of embodiment opened the field up for a focus on lived physicalness and corporeality, not only in the process of making up and internalizing body identities but also in the examination of strategies concerning the application of body images and ideologies, as well as their modifications and (historic) practice. The consideration of these latter approaches in historical research, other than gender history, has still to be regarded as a major desideratum.

The Graz University conference will therefore focus on the term ‚embodiment‘ from a historical and interdisciplinary point of view, and seek to analyse exemplary concepts and practices of body and gender from the Middle Ages up to the present. Such a longitudinal perspective enables us to point out the variability of (gendered) body discourses in history and to discern the wide variety of social body (and gender) practices of individuals and collectives.

In this context, the following issues shall be addressed:
– In which way did (gendered) body politics and body images interact with the social practices of different ages?
– How did individuals and social groups relate to existing cultural body (and gender) norms?
– How did ‚bodily experiences‘ and gender discourses on the social and cultural body depend on each other?
– What specific functions did body-images have in the rhetoric of power and cultural policies, and how did they serve to establish and defend hegemonic positions?
– What kind of influence did institutional practices in the translation of body and gender discourses exert over social practices and vice versa?

In short, the conference will concentrate on the making up, staging, rehearsing and performing of body and gender identities in a longitudinal historical perspective. The submitted papers should therefore focus, above all, on institutional, collective and individual body and gender identities and their corresponding performative practices.

This call for papers is directed at senior as well as junior reseachers who have studied institutional, collective and individual body practises with consideration of gender aspects. This does not only include affirmative strategies, but also the subversion and reinterpretation of body and gender discourses into a longitudinal historical view. Papers submitted should therefore discuss processes of internalisation and reification (such as nationalistic body identities), or else the
transgression and dissolution of seemingly given gender boundaries in society (including issues of post-humanism, cross-dressing, transgender and transsexual body practices, virtual gender and bodies, etc). This especially addresses a closer scrutiny of:
– public and national institutions (such as maternity wards, foundling homes, workhouses, penitentiaries, jails, infirmaries, hospitals, (sports) schools etc.), as well as private establishments responsible for the implementation of gender and body ideologies (such as maternity counselling centres, sexual education centres, marriage brokers, gymnastics clubs and the like);
– specific practices of various social groups and collective body practises pertaining to social categories such as ‚race‘, class, age and religion (girls/boys, body identities between the conflicting priorities of socially constructed male and female roles) and national contexts of racism and ethnicisation;
– the analysis of ‚lived physicalness and corporeality‘ and individual ‚bodily experiences‘, as reflected by biographical and autobiographical texts and other ego-documents.

Longitudinal historical studies and comparative papers on the above mentioned issues are particularly welcome. This would include:
– longitudinal studies on body and gender norms, gender systems, and gender practices pertaining to various social ranks in history;
– the political and cultural utilization of gender and body ideologies, their specific effects on body practices, and their modification in history (in pre-modern feudal systems and modern nationalistic concepts);
– the analysis of historical changes in processes of disciplining, criminalisation and politicisation of the body and sexuality, and the effects of these processes on the making-up of corporeality.

We also welcome papers covering the latest theoretical and methodological questions concerning body and gender. The submitted papers should discuss basic issues regarding the historicisation of gendered bodies. Papers may also cover theoretical approaches concerning the processes of making-up, rehearsing and performing gender and body identities which have been developed in gender studies, cultural studies and historical research (with due consideration of feminist and gender theory, the history of sexuality, approaches in cultural anthropology, social history, history of mentalities, constructivist approaches and the latest theoretical developments concerning the concept of embodiment). We also appreciate comparative analyses of ‚modern‘ and ‚pre-modern‘ body and gender concepts and practices, and their respective methodological and theoretical implications for gender studies and historical research.

We are also greatly interested in ongoing research. You are therefore welcome to present appropriate projects and concepts. Above all, we invite junior scholars, research groups and PhDs to submit suitable papers. The conference languages will be German and English.

As the issues discussed in this conference owe many fundamental theoretical inputs to the creative reflection on body and gender, we plan to accompany the conference with several art events. Literary readings as well as dance and body performances are envisaged. Conceptual idea and organisation: Research and Study Center for Gender History, University of Graz
Contact: nina.kogler@uni-graz.at