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Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa

       

       

International Conference on (Re)making bodies: The structures and dynamics of aesthetics and aspirations in an evolving Africa

Application deadline: 15 March 2016

International Conference
Date: 23-25 August 2016
Venue: Casablanca, Morocco

CODESRIA’s Program on Humanities seeks to foster work in the Humanities and engender conversations between scholars in the Humanities and the Social Sciences on themes of interest to the Council with the goal of producing theoretical and conceptual insights that often escape lenses peculiar to any one of these two fields of knowledge.

The (re)making of bodies, often portrayed more grotesquely today in the practices of skin bleaching and the enhancement and reduction of various parts of the body are increasingly pervasive practices in Africa that have generated much debate and discussion. The health implications of these practices and the markets that underpin them have received attention both among scholars and in the popular press. Further, discussion has focused on the implications and effects of these practices on identities and hierarchies of being at a global as well as local level.

CODESRIA’s conference on ‘(Re)making bodies’ seeks to assemble a group of scholars in the Humanities and the Social Sciences to explore the (re)making of bodies and the structure and dynamics of aesthetics and aspirations in an evolving Africa. Recognizing that the (re)making bodies in Africa is not a new phenomenon, it is hoped that these conversations will escape the temptation to only dwell on the present to insert these practices within the variegated histories of an expansive continent that has been in constant contact with the rest of the world. CODESRIA invites abstracts on the following sub-themes from African and Diaspora scholars that are interested in participating in this conference:

• The evolving meanings and understandings of beauty, wellbeing and Africanity in an Africa in the (re)making
• The intersection of the (re)making of bodies and the (re)making of aesthetics and aspirations in Africa
• Contested vistas of sensuality, beauty, wellness and wellbeing and the (re)making of African bodies
• Hierarchies of being and the (re)making of the being that is seen
• Nativist and cosmopolitan flirtations and alibis in the location of the (re)making of bodies in the structures and dynamics of aesthetics and aspirations
• (Re)making bodies as a set of gendered practices
• The social embeddedness of the (re)making of bodies
• The economics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of an economy of (re)making bodies
• Virtual aesthetic communities

Those interested in participating in the conference are invited to send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a CV with full contact details including email addresses and phone numbers to CODESRIA no later than March 15, 2016. Authors of abstracts selected will be informed of their selection by April 15, 2016 and should be ready to submit full papers by 31 May, 2016. All documents should be sent in Word format by email to humanities.programme@codesria.sn. Please use the subject line ‘Humanities Program’ when sending your email.

Humanities Program
CODESRIA
BP 3304, CP 18524 Dakar, Senegal
Tel: +221 – 33 825 9822/23
Fax: +221- 33 824 1289
E-mail: humanities.programme@codesria.sn

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