Personified Body Parts and Organs with a Mind of Their Own in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture
אנחנו מזמינים חוקרים/ות מתחומי מדעי הקולנוע, הספרות והתרבות החזותית להשתתף באסופת מאמרים בינלאומית ייחודית ומסקרנת בנושא ‘חלקי גוף כבני-אנוש ואיברים עם מחשבה משלהם בראי הקולנוע, הספרות והתרבות החזותית’. להלן הקול-קורא באנגלית:
CALL FOR PAPERS: Body Parts with a Mind of Their Own in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture
Editors
Gilad Padva, scholar in cinema, culture and gender studies
Yair Koren Maimon, Gordon Academic College
This collection initially examines cinematic, televisual, literary, visual and poetic representations of body parts who are vitalized, autonomized, individuated and animated. They become independent entities with a mind of their own. Instead of been parts of intricate mechanisms, these organs turn into independent, humanized and personified “bodies.”
As self-directed figures or creatures, these body parts act, perform, exhibit themselves and even talk, sing and dance like human beings, although they are not physically connected to any brain or other body parts. They function as rather resilient, self-esteem subjectivities with their own vulnerabilities, fragilities, sensitivities, strengths, ideas and values. Notably, the very idea of independent or lively mutilated organs genuinely appears in the Bible. In the story of the creation of Eve, Adam’s rib dramatically plays a significant part. In Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, the bones are vitalized, fleshed and stand up like they were live creatures that yearn to be revived.
Human organs are embodied in particular mythologies and national and universal iconographies, spiritualities and fantasies. In the Jewish mystic Kabballah, for example, body parts like head, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, thighs, phallus and legs are fascinatingly analogized with transcendental landscapes and topographies. In the Brothers Grimm’s fairytales, a corps’ decapitated head speaks and cunningly avenge its owner’s death; a drawn girl’s bone reveals the murderer’s name when it turns into a harp that is played by a troubadour.
We invite chapters that interrogate the concept of seemingly independent body parts with a mind of their own from a variety of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds. Potential topics include:
- Artificial body parts that become vital, independently of the rest of the body, in the age of cyborgs, cloning, and transplant and prosthetic organs
- Personified and/or queered sex organs with a mind of their own, from the animated series Big Mouth’s talking vagina to autonomous phalluses, abject and sensual buttocks and buttholes, fetishized breasts, chests, and nipples
- The blood as a livable, substant and mesmerizing liquid of life in Gothic, vampiric and horror cultures
- (Un)disciplined hair as distinct, autonomous entity and iconographic phenomenon, e.g., Afro natural hair, dreadlocks, mythicized blondness, moustaches, beards, chest hair, pubic hair, armpits and eyebrows, from Rapunzel’s powerful long hair to Der Struwwelpeter (Shock-headed Peter whose hair grows wild) and Tom of Finland’s mustached, well-hung men in uniforms
- The heart as sacred, empowering and terrifying fetish, icon and artifact in theological, popular and even cannibalistic cultures, from the Sacré Cœur in Christian mythology to Lady Gaga carrying the heart of her dead lover Alejandro
- Historical, ethnic, defamatory and emancipatory representations of the nose, from Pinocchio’s elongated phallic nose to ethnic stereotyping and Gogol’s personification of a nose who is chased by his owner
- Personified hands in televisual and cinematic portrayals of “It” (the walking hand in the Gothic comedy The Addams Family) to the serial killer Freddy Kruger’s murderous blade glove
- The iconography of lips in popular culture, from the lips applied by red hot lipstick in makeup commercials to the iconic logo of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Jessica Rabbit’s flying kiss in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Insatiable or vulnerable eyes in the Greek mythology (the Graeae, three witches who share one eye and one tooth), Bataille’s The Story of the Eye, Buñuel and Dalí’s film Un Chien Andalou, the Eye of Sauron or Great Eye in Lord of the Rings, the icon of the Big Brother’s surveilling eye, etc.
Abstracts of 450 – 500 words, alongside the author’s short bio (100 words), to be submitted by April 20, 2023.
Accepted chapters of approx. 5,000 – 7,000 words to be submitted August 15, 2023.
Direct queries and submissions to:
Dr. Gilad Padva giladpadva@gmail.com
Dr. Yair Koren Maimon yairma@gordon.ac.il