CFP: The Body. Readings in English and American Literature and Culture

We invite scholars to contribute to the second volume of the “Readings in English and American Literature and Culture” series published by the University of Opole Press. The first volume (on Community and Nearness) was released in November, 2007. The second one, devoted to the issue of the body, is scheduled for publication in 2009.

Although the body features prominently in all academic disciplines, we would like to concentrate on cultural/ideological/literary constructions and manifestations of the body in English (British) and American literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. We are open to various aspects and meanings of the issue, taking into account not only questions of corporeal self-construction but also such diverse, and yet interconnected, terms as “the body politic,” “canonical bodies” or “incarnation.” Thus we invite a wide range of voices which hopefully reflect the variety inherent in the somewhat general notion known as the “body.”

Possible topics include but are not limited to

• the body as site of social construction, contestation, identity, & authenticity
• mutilation and self-immolation; bodily disintegration; diseased body
• pornography and art; sexualized flesh
• gender and sexuality
• bodies in and as visual texts
• problems of perception and the phenomenological approach to the body
• the body politic and its corollaries
• body-mind dichotomy and its dilemmas
• body language; speech and sexuality
• embodied mind, virtual reality and artificial intelligence

“If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred” (Walt Whitman).
“In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art” (Susan Sontag).

Our deadlines are June 1, 2008, for 200-word abstracts, and October 31th, 2008, for whole papers (these should not exceed 20 pages; please follow the MLA documentation style). In case of inquiries contact Ilona Dobosiewicz (dobosiewicz@interia.pl) or Jacek Gutorow (jacek.gutorow@neostrada.pl); both at English Dept, University of Opole, pl. Kopernika 11, 45-040 Opole, Poland.