SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS
The Limits of the Body
Annual Association of American Geographers Conference, Las Vegas, 22-27
March 2009.
Organizers: Paul Simpson (University of Bristol) and Sebastian Abrahamsson
(University of Oxford)
"Always and never reached, the limit is in sum both inherent to the singular
and exterior to it: it exposes it. It is immediately and conjointly the
strict shape of its 'inside' and the drawing of its 'outside'. In itself, it
is nothing." (Nancy 2004: 46)
"To penetrate another person is to transgress the boundaries of [the] self,
to trespass and to sin. To experiment with one's own body is therefore a
sophisticated technique for investigating who you are" (Olsson 1991: 146)
"What can a body do?" (Deleuze 1992: 218)
In recent times discussions of the body and embodiment have come to
prominence in geographic work, or rather, 'the problem of the body'
(Longhurst 1995) has become a central problematic. In an attempt to attend
to the illusory nature of the body (Dewsbury 2000), there has been a move to
make "the body the very 'stuff' of subjectivity" (Grosz 1994: ix),
especially within the recent 'practice turn' within human geography and
social theory. For example, the body has been examined as a site of
creativity and experimentation (McCormack 2005); as that which because of
its hybridity is always already more-than-human (Whatmore 2007); as
embodied/social/cultural/gendered site of production (Longhurst 1997); as
vulnerable, susceptible, and exposed (Harrison 2008); and as that which not
only inhabits but also produces space (Thrift 2000/2007). In this session we
propose to approach the body from one specific angle, namely in terms of its
limit(s). Limit here is deliberately conceived of in broad terms: as
biological, phenomenological, psychological, social, material etc. In an
attempt to map and complicate such limits we also encourage presenters that
wish to stage encounters between constructivist and biological or
physiological approaches to the body (Latour 2004). We therefore invite
papers which approach an idea of the limit(s) of the body from a broad range
of empirical and theoretical perspectives and which take the notion of the
limit in a multitude of ways. Without in any way imposing a limit, papers might:
- Theorize 'the limit' itself;
- Examine the fleshy-material limits of bodies and their relation to
the world;
- Discuss how we can approach/understand breaches of or rifts in the
material limits of the body and the encounter with its inside;
- Approach inter-subjective understandings of the body and the
relation of bodies;
- Encounter the body pushed to its limit under certain practices such
as in sport, theatre, dance or those of a more everyday nature;
- Discuss the body that has reached its limit and is now exhausted,
still, or dead;
- Examine the body that can take no more (pain, trauma, laughter etc.);
- Critique the limits of certain understandings of the body prevalent
within recent geographic work;
- Consider the limit of the body and bodily life through the shifting
relations between life, death and (im)mortality.
Expressions of interest and abstracts (of no more than 250 words) should
be sent by the 3rd of October to both: Paul Simpson
([log in to unmask]) and Sebastian Abrahamsson
([log in to unmask])
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