Call for Papers:
*The Economy of Shit in English Renaissance Studies*
SAMLA Conference in Atlanta, GA
During one of Queen Elizabeth's progresses, she was presented with a handful of
"deer berries." This interesting token signified the superiority of the
region's game and its worth as an object of royal consumption. This exchange
offers insight into the significance of handling shit in Elizabethan society.
But how was shit handled in the literature of the period?
This panel proposes to examine the topic of excrement in early modern English
literature and culture. Although literally distasteful both then and now, the
business of shit not only figures as a popular subject for low comedy, but also
operates more prominently than has hitherto been treated as an allegory for and
of the period's various social transactions. Several scholarly works have
recently begun to investigate the importance of such matter, including Bruce
Thomas Boehrer's The Fury of Men's Gullets: Ben Jonson and the Digestive Canal
and Anne Lake Prescott's Imagining Rabelais in Renaissance England. Our panel
seeks to further discussion of the topic.
Among the many possible avenues of investigation are
Ø tropes and representations of excrement and/or excretion in literature
Ø waste management and the social order
Ø power's bodily processes: consumption, digestion, defecation, etc.
Ø exile, alienation, and the alimentary canal
Ø post-colonialism: imperialism, discovery, and dysentery
Ø tilling the soil(ed): recycling raw materials in literature and culture
Ø "wild wastes": renaissance landfills and the progress of civilization
Ø excrement, expenditure, and the logic of "the gift"
Ø waste product and/or surplus
Please send papers or 1-page abstracts by March 27 to:
Lbroome@uky.campuscwix.net and/or smmorr0@pop.uky.edu
or by post to:
Lisa E. Broome and Sean M. Morris
Department of English
1215 Patterson Office Tower
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
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or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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