The editors of Skepsi, the postgraduate-run journal within the School of European Culture and Languages (SECL), are organising a conference on ‘Disgust’, scheduled for 29 to 30 May 2015, and are looking for 300-word abstracts for 20 minute presentations.
Disgust has received growing critical attention among researchers and university scholars in fields as varied as literature, philosophy of art, biology, psychology or gender studies. With the neurosciences increasingly gaining attention from the humanities for their project of explaining cognitive states and processes with reference to the material brain, it is opportune to reflect upon those experiences that strike the pit of the stomach before the head. Disgust seems to shock the viscera directly. It is considered by biology as an emotion rooted in evolution, an instinct serving to prevent our species from touching harmful substances.
The conference aims to explore the complex nature of the feeling of disgust. It is universally experienced even if the object of disgust can vary greatly according to the cultures. Yet, more broadly, it can also be elicited by abstract issues – can or should it be related to ethical outrage as a way to protect human dignity and social order?
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following, and their interrelations:
- Psychological and psychoanalytical approaches: Disgust as an emotion: functions, structures – Self-disgust: how can we feel disgusted by our own body, ourselves? – Disgust versus anger: what is the relation between these two emotions? Why are these two emotions often associated or confused?
- Sociological, anthropological perspectives: Evolutionary and social role of disgust: why are we disgusted? – Relativity of disgust: what is disgusting? – Disgust and gender: is gender regulating our perception of/sensitivity to disgust? – Disgust and the other: Is there a suspension of disgust in parenting/love?
- Disgust in the arts: Representation of disgust, disgusting text versus disgusting images: how is disgust represented in literary or cinematic fiction/the arts? – Disgust and beauty/aesthetics, horror, the sublime: why is disgust so appealing? What kind of pleasure do we experience from a disgusting representation?
- Disgust and the body: Disgust and food – taste and bad taste – Disgust and the senses: why are some senses more reactive to disgust? Nausea and physical reactions to disgust: from surfeit to visceral disgust? – Disgust and contamination, disease: Is disgust grounded in fear of contamination? Disgust and sexuality: Is sexual desire haunted by bodily disgust?
- Philosophical and political perspectives: Existential or moral disgust versus core disgust – Disgust and morality, law: Can or should laws be motivated by disgust? Disgust and fear of social contamination – Racism – Far right regimes/ far right popularity in contemporary societies: can disgust create a social boundary?
Presentations will be followed by 10 minutes of questions.
The keynote speaker of the conference is to be Professor Roger Giner-Sorolla (School of Psychology, University of Kent).
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 8 March 2015. Abstracts should be sent via email as a Word attachment to the conference organising committee, with the covering message including the name of the author, institution, and brief biographical details. You should also indicate in your proposal any audiovisual requirements you may have.
The email address of the conference organising committee is: skepsi@kent.ac.uk
For more about the journal Skepsi, please see its website here:
blogs.kent.ac.uk/skepsi