Call for papers
The Five Senses in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: Literature and Language
7-8 June 2013, University of Bern
Conference Organisers:
Prof. Dr. Beatrix Busse (University of Heidelberg)
Prof. Dr. Annette Kern-Stähler (University of Bern)
The study of the historical and cultural formation of the senses has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years. We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers from medievalists and early modernists (in English literary and cultural studies or in linguistics). Topics may include but are not limited to
* sensory environments
* sensory metaphors
* sensory hierarchies
* sense impairments
* gender and the senses
Papers might explore
* how sensory experiences are expressed and ordered by language
* how literature grows out of and evokes sensory experiences
* how sensations were interpreted in the late medieval and early modern periods
* how the meanings of sensory terms have changed with time
* how the knowledge of sense perception was transmitted
To maximise the interaction among the conference participants, there will be no parallel sessions. The concluding session of the conference will include a panel discussion of the outstanding problems in the fields and the trends for future research.
Confirmed keynote speakers
Professor Vincent Gillespie, University of Oxford
Dr Farah Karim-Cooper, King’s College London
Professor Richard Newhauser, Arizona State University
Please send an abstract (max 250 words) and a bionote by 15 February 2013 to
annette.kern-staehler@ens.unibe.ch
