Monday, June 6, 2011

RSA 2012: Imagined Bodies of the Italian Wars (6/9/11)

The Italian Wars, Francesco Guicciardini writes, not only kept dominions in flux and cities in peril but also introduced "new fashions, new customs, new and bloody forms of warfare, and unknown diseases.” In art, literature, theater, historiography, propaganda, military arts, and the popular imagination, these wars signaled a political and cultural ground shift (in Italy and in Europe), changes often contemplated through the imagined body. This panel invites papers that explore the roles that gender, violence, cultural confrontation, imagination, the sacred, and the body (broadly construed) play in these decades of clash, upheaval, and adaptation. Contributions from all fields/cultures are welcome. Please send a brief bio and a 150-word abstract by June 9th to Jessica Goethals (jlg324@nyu.edu).