Association of American Geographers Annual Conference, New York City
27 February - 3 March 2001
CALL FOR PAPERS
Title:
Fleshing out 'the body'
Convenors: Lynda Johnston, Department of Geography, University of
Edinburgh and
Robyn Longhurst, Department of Geography, University of Waikato
We are organising a paper session for the New York AAG conference on
the flesh - the messy materiality - of bodies. Over the last few
years geographers have begun to pay more attention to bodies - their
own bodies and the bodies of their research subjects. However, many
of the bodies articulated in geographers' texts have tended to be
theoretical, discursive, fleshless bodies. A distinction appears to
have been drawn between discursive bodies (culture) and material
bodies (nature). A distinction also appears to have been drawn
between political practice and political theory.
Discourse and theory seem to offer a purity that gendered/sexed, sexualised,
racialised, aged, ill, (dis)abled materiality and practice
threatens to taint and soil. The leaky, messy, awkward zones of the
inside / outside of bodies and their resulting spatial relationships
remain largely unexamined in geography perhaps because they are
linked to a politics of masculinist knowledge production.
The aim of this session is to explore some of these ideas and in the
process soil the supposed purity of theoretical possibility by
invoking the flesh and fluids of bodies (this is not to imply that
material bodies can simply be plucked from discourse). We are seeking
papers that focus on the shape, depth, biology, insides, outsides,
and boundaries of bodies placed in particular temporal and spatial
contexts.
Please contact Lynda Johnston for further details. Titles, abstracts
(no longer than 250 words) and copies of registration materials
will be required by August 15, 2000 and should be sent to Lynda
Johnston. Please get in touch with one of us if you are
interested in participating and need more information.
Lynda Johnston
[log in to unmask]
Robyn Longhurst
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Many thanks.
________________________
Dr Lynda Johnston
Lecturer
Geography Department
University of Edinburgh
Drummond Street
Edinburgh EH8 9XP
Scotland
ph: + 44 (0)131 650 9138
fax: + 44 (0)131 650 2524
email: [log in to unmask]
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