Body/State in the Age of Austerity
A substantial amount of feminist scholarship has sought to illuminate the ways in which states and bodies are intertwined both in general and in an age of austerity in particular. This research has taken a wide range of forms, from interrogation of the significance of the presence of sexed and raced bodies in political institutions, to the disciplining of bodily ‘deviance’, to the ways in which the state itself has been gendered as masculine. Recent work has also questioned the gendered dimensions of austerity politics, the state’s part in the commodification of bodies and body parts and the politics of the alteration and ‘enhancement’ of bodies (Cameron, Dickinson and Smith 2013).
We invite papers from across disciplines such as sociology, history, and international relations, as well as political science, and particularly encourage submissions from postgraduate students. Prospective participants should submit a title and abstract (of no more than 200 words) to Fran Amery by November 29th 2013.
The Conference is co-sponsored by the University of Birmingham Gender and Feminist Theory Group.
