Material Culture Symposium: Body as Object
Material Culture Annual Symposium
The body as object: The human as material culture
May 1, 2009
Telus Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
The human body is developed, changed, and shaped by nature and culture. As a site of experience, expression, and interpretation, the body offers sensation and feeling, but also form and substance that may be inspected and analyzed by the self and others.
This symposium discusses human bodies in relation to the material world: bodies are considered as real, physical entities that are manipulated, depicted, and understood as places where interior sensibility meets external form.
Speakers will cover topics such as:
Susie Orbach: How we ‘get’ a body
Ben Barry and Becky Conekin: How the bodies of fashion models are presented and viewed both today and in the past
Pirkko Markula: How male and female bodies are shaped through exercise
Jorg Scheller: How bodies may be considered as deliberately-constructed works of art
Lianne McTavish: How medical imagery may depict bodies as cultural objects that are endowed with moral value
Cost: $30 / $15 (concessions). Lunch and refreshments included.
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