(Image)ining The Female Body

University of Surrey
October 29, 2010

Olympia, douard Manet, 1863

(Image)ining the Female Body will explore the various ways the female body is
represented and manipulated in the contexts of art, activism, and academia.
Presenters working in (though not excluded to) the fields of literature, creative writing,
psychology, philosophy, politics, art history and feminist studies are invited to present
a twenty minute paper dealing with the challenges which arise in depicting the female
body, and the ways in which the limitations imposed by the body are dealt with in
order to create and reaffirm the female subject. At a time when it is widely argued
that the work of the feminist movement is complete, the glaring realisation that the
female body is still used as worldwide currency proves this claim to be false. We are
still faced with the problems of bodily representation which are enhanced by the fact
that the pornography industry manages to turn profit in a recession, bodily
enhancements and augmentations are still rampant, and the question of who actually
owns the female body is still eminently relevant. This one-day conference aims to
consider the ways in which the female body has been appropriated by patriarchal
culture to reinforce its own very existence, and the measures which are being taken
in order to restore the image of the female body to its rightful owner.

Suggestions for topics include, but are not limited to:

Gender Performativity
Racial Representations of the Body
Bodily Interpretations in Contemporary Performance
Hysteria: The Hysterical Woman and Bodily Repercussions
Bodies of Art: Constructions of the Body in Visual Art
Political Representations
Queering the Body
Creative Works of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry which are Primarily
Concerned with Writing the Female Body

An Abstract of no more than 300 words along with a brief mini-biography is due to
Amanda Finelli no later than Friday June 25, 2010. Early submissions are
encouraged and should be emailed to a.finelli@surrey.ac.uk. Any queries should also
be sent to a.finelli@surrey.ac.uk.