CFP: "Un-Disciplined Bodies" in Contemporary Novel (3/15/03; PAMLA, 11/7/03-11/9/03)

Un-Disciplined Bodies in Contemporary Novel
PAMLA Annual Convention, November 7-9 2003
Scripps College, Claremont, CA

Following Foucault’s influential theories, we have come to accept as a matter
of course that we are all “docile bodies,” disciplined by normative culture
into performing our appropriate gender, race, sex, etc. However, contemporary
novelists seem to be challenging this notion, writing bodies that are
distinctly “un-disciplined”—not subject to laws of gender, race, sex, or even
life and death. Like Toni Morrison’s famous depiction of Beloved, these bodies
are not portrayed as simply rebelling against social discipline, but as
challenging, in their fleshed existence, our definitions of what it means to be
human.

Papers are solicited that examine this reoccurring trend. Possible topics
include, but are not limited to: disability, ethnicity, sexuality, or age and
un-disciplined bodies; narrative and un-disciplined bodies; un-disciplined
bodies and contemporary rights movements; un-disciplined bodies and
multiculturalism; un-disciplined bodies and feminism; un-disciplined bodies and
theories of the novel.

500 word proposals should be sent to Monika Hogan (nika_at_english.umass.edu)
Deadline for receipt of proposals: March 15, 2003

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Received on Fri Mar 07 2003 - 18:09:38 EST