Practices and their bodies. What kind of artefact is the lived body?
In the last few years, the body has become a crucial research field for the cultural and social sciences. Anthropological and phenomonlogical as well as historical contributions have brought the discussion further. The 2nd Mainz Symposium of Social and Cultural Studies “Practices and their bodies. What kind of artefact is the lived body?” will now discuss the body as part of material culture. In recent years the term practices has oftentimes been used to express this perspective – a conception of human action and behaviour that places controlled bodily movement at the centre of social life and conceives the body as both artefact and medium of social practices.
Contributions of diverse disciplines (e.g., sociology, history, anthropology, cultural and media studies) will be consolidated in order to converge on possible answers to fundamental questions regarding a sociocultural view of the body. What kind of an artefact is the lived body? How many bodies does a human being have? What is the communication technological potential of bodies? How does the material body correspond to the perception of the lived body and of ‘mental’ activities? What are the variations that ‘marginal bodies’ bring to light: damaged, animal, dead, embryological, and engineered (cyborg) bodies?
The Mainz Symposia of Social and Cultural Studies are also host to the Georg Forster Lecture.
| Website of the Symposium |
| Schedule |
| Conference Report, The European Archaeologist |
| Conference Report, H-Soz-u-Kult |
