Accueil / Actualités / Événements / Appels à communication / 15 fév. 2022, Helsinki : The Embodied Court. (...)

15 fév. 2022, Helsinki : The Embodied Court. Procreation – Sexuality – Lifestyle – Death

University of Helsinki
1 – 3 September 2022

​Recent years have seen increased attention paid to the individual bodies that made up premodern royal and princely courts, and how the courtly environment shaped the corporal experiences of everyone involved, from the ruler down to the servants. This interdisciplinary conference will explore the physicality of the court in four key contexts from across the lifecycle : bodies being born and giving birth ; bodies as sexual actors or objects ; bodies in courtly lifestyles ; and dead and dying bodies. These common experiences were not one-size-fits-all, but took on particular political, social, and cultural consequence in the charged atmosphere of the court (which they in turn helped define).

Specific topics could include, but are not limited to :

Successful and unsuccessful births at court
Female bodies and childbirth
Voluntary and involuntary childlessness
Illegitimate births
Newborn bodies and court ritual
Sex life in courtly marriages
Sex as a public or private affair
Sexual liasons across unequal partners
Gendered presentation and transgender bodies
Queer sexualities (including bisexuality and asexuality) in court cultures
Physical exercise and recreational pursuits
Body performativity in courtly staging
Courts and plagues
Unexpected deaths
Care for the aged and terminally ill
Funerals at court
The afterlives of royal and noble corpses
We welcome papers on these issues in any courtly context from 1200 to 1800, including global perspectives, from from scholars across the humanities, including history, art history, literature, and other related fields. The proceedings of the conference will be in English, but papers will be accepted in other languages.

Titles for 20-minute papers with abstracts of approximately 200 words should be submitted, along with brief biographical details of the speaker(s), by 15 February 2022 to ecconference2022 chez gmail.com. Panel proposals of 3–4 papers, roundtable discussions, or other formats are also welcome ; these should include an overall title for the panel as well as the title, abstract, and biography for each individual contribution and speaker as above. Any questions can be directed to the organizers at ecconference2022 chez gmail.com.