CfP: Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World
Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World. 9th-10th June 2025 John Rylands Research Institute, Manchester, UK
- Keynote speakers: Marcy Norton (University of Pennsylvania) & Sara Miglietti (The Warburg Institute)
- PhD students and ECRs are particularly encouraged to apply.
- Reasonable travel and accommodation expenses for speakers will be covered.
- Please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short bio (100 words) to Eleanor Shaw by 3 February 2025.
Scholarship on early modern embodiment has emphasised the body’s porosity, permeability and instability. Early modern bodies did not end at the skin, but rather their interior and exterior worlds were in constant material exchange. Close engagement with, and management of, the body’s surroundings was thus essential for ensuring health and wellbeing.
We invite papers examining the relationship between bodies and environments in any context and geographical location c. 1500-1750. Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Practices of ‘environing’ (or human engagements with physical surroundings) aimed at preserving or restoring health
- The health or embodied consequences of environmental interventions or ‘improvements’
- The use of place-specific materials for practices of bodily management and health preservation
- Multispecies approaches to health and wellbeing
- ‘Geo-humoral’ concepts of embodiment
Please see the full call for papers for more details: https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-well/home/events/