Historicizing Somaesthetics: Body-Mind Connections in the Medieval and Early Modern Viewer
College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, Feb. 22-25, 2012
Session Organizer and Chair: Allie Terry-Fritsch, Bowling Green State University (alterry@bgsu.edu)
Session Description: Despite rigorous scholarly attention to Medieval and Early Modern bodies and beholders, discussions of historical art experience remain tied to anthropological notions of “ritual,” “religious practice,” and “performance” or concerned with intellectual traditions that informed the visual process. This session considers somaesthetic fashioning, a term used in recent years to point to the purposeful cultivation of the mind-body connections of individuals to heighten contemporary aesthetic experience, as a means to theorize the visual experience of Medieval and Early Modern art and architecture. By “historicizing somaesthetics,” this session seeks to highlight the mind-body connections of historical viewers and to forge a new theoretical construct of the historicized aesthetic experience. Submissions might address: What is at stake in defining Medieval and Early Modern aesthetic experience in “somaesthetic” terms? How did Medieval and Early Modern individuals cultivate aesthetic experience through their bodies? How, apart from the language used to describe such experiences, does such an understanding help to bridge the Medieval and Early Modern viewer to their contemporary counterparts?
Deadline for Paper Proposals: May 2, 2011
Proposals should be sent in hard copy to:
Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch
Art History, School of Art
Bowling Green State University
1000 Fine Arts Building
Bowling Green, Ohio 43403
Proposals must include:
1) Completed session participation form, found at: http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2012callforparticipation
2) Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages
3) Letter explaining speaker’s interests, expertise in the topic, and CAA membership status
4) CV with home and office mailing address, email address and phone and fax numbers. Include summer address, if applicable
5) If mailing internationally, it is recommended that proposals be sent via certified mail
If applicants have any questions, please contact Allie Terry-Fritsch (alterry@bgsu.edu)
