MEDIEVAL SKIN

Please note: Registration for the conference will close on 10 July 2009

A two day, interdisciplinary conference

to be held at the

Internationales Begegnungszentrum IBZ

Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

17-18 July 2009

‘This troubly liif hath al to longe endurid,
Not haue I wist hou in my skyn to tourne’

Thomas Hoccleve, My Compleinte

Detail from 'Christ in Glory', The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Folio 34v (Public Domain)

Skin is a multifarious image in medieval culture: the literal surface for inscribing texts and illuminating images, human skin (and Christ’s in particular) also becomes a ‘text’ to be read; wounds in the skin bespeak the vulnerability of bodily boundaries and become points of entry (sacred, mundane, and profane) in which bodies and selves mingle and blur.  So too is skin implicated in medieval thinking about the conditions of being human and the production of subjects and selves, as Hoccleve’s image of turning in his skin suggests.  Recent scholarship has begun to address these (and other) uses and representations of skin in medieval contexts in stimulating ways; this conference brings together current scholarship from across the disciplines to invite new readings of and reflections upon skin.

Keynote Speaker:

Dr Robert Mills (King's College London)  

'Havelok's Bare Life and the Significance of Skin'

Venue:

Internationales Begegnungszentrum IBZ, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/koordinationsbuero/IBZ/

Conference Fee (before 1 March 2009)*:

1 Day Fee (including lunch and coffee)        2 Day Fee (including lunch and coffee)

          25.00€                                                    45.00€                                      

          20.00€ student concession                        40.00€ student concession

* After 1 March the Fee will be increased by 5.00€

Queries regarding the conference may also be addressed to Katie Walter (katie.walter@rub.de).

Sources:

Thomas Hoccleve, 'My Compleinte' and Other Poems, ed. Roger Ellis (University of Exeter Press 2001), p. 124.

'Christ in Glory', The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Folio 34v (Public Domain), http://historymedren.about.com/od/booksofhours/ig/Tr-s-Riches-Heures/Christ-in-Glory.htm (accessed 5th January 2009)