CFP: Corpses, Cadavers and Catalogues: The Mobilities of Dead Bodies and Body Parts, Past and Present
CFP: Corpses, Cadavers and Catalogues:
The Mobilities of Dead Bodies and Body Parts, Past and
Present May 17th-18th May 2016
Venue: Barts Pathology Museum and the Hunterian Museum at
the Royal College of Surgeons, London
Organisers: Kristin Hussey (QMUL) and Sarah Morton (Keble
College, Oxford) Advisory Panel: Dr. Tim Brown (QMUL) and Dr. Beth Greenhough
(Keble College, Oxford)
Deadline for Abstracts: January 15th, 2016
An interest in the dead body, and particularly its
shifting meanings, mobility and agency can be seen in recent works of museology,
geography and history of medicine (Hallam, 2007; Maddrell and Sidaway, 2010;
Alberti, 2011; Young and Light, 2013). The biographies of human remains held by
museums have been an area of considerable interest for medical museums dealing
with their Victorian inheritance. The process by which pathological specimens
or samples transform from intimate relics of life to scientific data has been
explored by social historians of medicine, anthropologists and archaeologists
(Boston et al., 2008; Fontein et al., 2010; Withycombe, 2015). There remains,
however, little discussion across these disciplines as well as need to further
explore the movement of the dead body, both in the past and present, in order
to consider broader questions of power, imperialism and globalisation.
From the repatriation of contentious human remains to the
controversial and fascinating body-world exhibits, dead body parts circulate in
multiple ways through museum spaces past and present. This two-day
interdisciplinary conference will bring together museum professionals and
academics to foster a productive dialogue on the movement of the dead body and
the social, ethical and political challenges it presents. In contrast to the
breadth of current research on the movement of the living, the subject of the
dead body will be used to bridge the divide between the work of museum
professionals and academics to promote the museum as a site for research, and
develop new connections and networks.
Through this conference, we hope to use the dead body as
a starting point for opening up wider debates on embodied knowledge,
materiality and meaning-making, the role of the body in structures of
inequality, and the challenges of colonial remains in a postcolonial world. We
hope these two days will bring together diverse speakers from across
disciplines to consider how bodies and body parts have informed their research
and professional practice. We welcome papers from PhD students, early career
researchers and heritage professionals, as well as works in progress.
Potential topics include but are not limited to:
• Meanings
of different body parts in historical and temporal contexts
• The
curation, display, and provenance of medical museum specimens
• The
materialities of colonialism and politics of repatriation
• Human
remains and the practice of medical history
• The
production of scientific knowledge
•
Provenance and interpretation of morbid and pathological specimens
• The body
refigured as an object
• Creation
and movement of embodied knowledge
• How the
body can be used to tell stories about the past
• Corpse
geographies and body biographies
• The body
in feminist and subaltern histories
• Ethics of
human remains research and display
To submit a paper proposal, please send an email with a
250-word abstract and a short (100 word) biography to cccConference2016@gmail.com by
January 15th 2016. Successful applicants will be contacted by early February
2015 and be expected to register by 1 March 2016 for the conference held 17-18
May.
For further information or informal questions about
possible topics, please contact the conference organisers via : cccConference2016@gmail.com.
Corpses, Cadavers and Catalogues is a collaboration
between Queen Mary University of London, School of Geography and the
Environment, University of Oxford, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of
Surgeons, Barts Pathology Museum, and is funded by the Wellcome Trust Small
Grants programme.
For more information please visit: https://cccconference2016.wordpress.com/
Thank you!
Kristin D Hussey, BSFS, MA
PhD Researcher in Historical Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
kristin.hussey@qmul.ac.uk/
07803172565