Presentation

Founded in 2009 after a series of seminars organised between 2001 and 2008 at the EHESS (Paris) and the Autonomous University of Madrid, CORPUS aims at being an effective participant in building a widely diverse and scientifically-based dialogue on the anthropological aspects of the body. As a cross-thinking forum, CORPUS now brings together more than four hundred researchers from over sixty-five different countries.

 The themes of the preceding symposia were "The Beautiful and the Ugly: Body Representations" (Lisbon, January 2010), "Foreign Bodies: Enhancing & Invading the Human Body" (Moscow, May 2010) and "Bodies & Folklore(s): Legacies, Constructions and Performances" (Lima, October 2010), "Diets and Food Patterns: Myths, Realities and Hopes" (Tbilisi, July 2011), "Devoted Bodies or Great Shows? Making Profit on Sacred Areas" (Munster, September 2011), "Genders, Cultures and Citizenships" (San Cristóbal de las Casas, November 2011) and "Parents’ Bodies, Children’s Bodies. From Conception to Education" (Timisoara, November 2011).

Organized by Academia Sinica and Taipei National University of the Arts, the theme for the Eighth International CORPUS Symposium is “Bodily Cultivation and Cultural Learning.” Almost all cultures recognize as a means of achieving religious or spiritual goals, cultivating moral and emotional virtue, or transforming ideas into bodily practices. Some of the most common examples include fasting, meditation, vegetarianism, and qigong or taichi. Rather than focus on these obvious examples, conference attendees will examine culturally driven bodily practices such as proper ways to walk, sit, and gesture—all of which are often endowed with rich cultural meaning, information about cultural learning, and knowledge about the cultivation of values and merit. Bodily cultivation can also be analyzed as a channel for learning, manifesting, developing, or shaping cultural concepts and ideals.

Participants will work on defining bodily cultivation in a broader sense, one that encompasses exercise, nurturance, and physical training as special modes of concept construction. Rather than focus on mind-body dualism/interaction, we will direct our attention to ways that bodily cultivation has been used to internalize cultural ideas, morality, and knowledge. Panels will also discuss various characteristics such as intentional design versus unintentional programming, professional versus amateur training, spiritual versus secular orientation, and mundane versus hedonistic/ascetic features.

Attendees are encouraged to propose or submit papers on these panel topics:

• Daoist body concept and religious cultivation
• Body techniques and skills: expert or novice
• Craftsmanship
• The athletic body
• Everyday forms of discipline
• Practice, process and metaphor
• Memory and body
• Civilization process

To submit

Proposals for English-language panels and presentations tied to these themes are welcomed.

Proposals must include an abstract (400 words) and a current CV.

The deadline for receiving proposals at corpustaiwan@gmail.com is December 15, 2012.

All proposals will be evaluated by an international committee.

There is no registration fee.

Participants are solely responsible for all transportation, visa arrangements, travel insurance costs, and accommodations.

The Symposium will take place in Taipei National University of the Arts (Taipei, Taiwan), from the  24th to the 26th of May, 2013

Contacts

CORPUS General Coordinator

• Frédéric Duhart
  frederic.duhart@wanadoo.fr

8th Symposium Coordinator

• Shuenn-Der Yu
  yusd5644@gate.sinica.edu.tw

8th Symposium Sc. Com. Coordinators

• Meiling Chien
  mlchien@faculty.nctu.edu.tw
  mmmchien@mail2000.com.tw
  

• Salomé Deboos
  salome.deboos@googlemail.com
  

• José Luis Grosso
  jolugros@gmail.com