Events
We invite our Centre Research Associates to advertise on the Somatechnics Research Centre website any upcoming events, conferences or related activities they are planning.
To have an announcement posted here, please email the Centre Administrator Jessica Cadwallader via email at SomatechnicsAdmin@gmail.com
This page will be updated regularly with new announcements.
The Fifth International Somatechnics Conference: The Technologisation of Bodies and Selves
Location: Macquarie University, Sydney Australia
Contact: Nikki Sullivan/Jess Cadwallader
The Fifth International Somatechnics Conference: The Technologisation of Bodies and Selves
Call for papers: Abstracts are invited for an international conference to be held in Sydney, Australia, on April 16th-18th 2009. Abstracts should be 300-500 words and should be forwarded to A/Prof Nikki Sullivan and Ms Jess Cadwallader at the addresses listed below. Proposals for panels and for performance pieces are welcome.
“Somatechnics” is a recently coined term used to highlight the inextricability of soma and techné, of the body (as a culturally intelligible construct) and the techniques (dispositifs and ‘hard technologies’) in and through which bodies are formed and transformed. This term, then, supplants the logic of the ‘and’, indicating that technés are not something we add to or apply to the body, but rather, are the means in and through which bodies are constituted, positioned, and lived. As such, the term reflects contemporary understandings of the body as the incarnation or materialization of historically and culturally specific discourses and practices.
Possible topics:
• Somatechnologies of the self (‘non-mainstream’ body modification, body sculpting, performance, fashion, drug use, ‘self-mutilation’, religious practice, etc)
• medical somatechnologies (cosmetic, reproductive, imaging, corrective, sex (re)assignment, implantation, enhancement, bio-techs, public health initiatives, etc)
• somatechnics of law
• somatechnologies of gender, sexuality, race, class, etc
• somatechnologies of normalcy and pathology
• somatechnics of war
• somatechnologies of the post-human (cyborgs, nanotechnology, virtuality, etc)
• soma-ethics
Deadline for abstracts: November 30th 2008
Keynote Speakers include:
Claudia Castaneda (Brandeis University)
Nichola Rumsey (University of the West of England)
Jennifer Terry (University of California, Irvine)
Further information:
The Somatechnics Conference Committee
Somatechnics Research Centre
Division of Society, Media, Culture and Philosophy
Macquarie University
North Ryde
New South Wales 2109
Australia
Email: nikki.sullivan@scmp.mq.edu.au and somatechnicsadmin@gmail.com
Phone: 61 (0)2 9850 8760
Somatechnics Research Centre Website: http://www.somatechnics.mq.edu.au