Representations of sexualities, bodies and disabilities have changed dramatically over centuries with paintings, cinema, literature, works of visual art, as well as with visual representations in advertising and the media which attract international attention.
 
With this conference, we place the aesthetics of the disabled body centre-stage as a queer(y)ing of the normative modalities of beauty, sex, love and desirability. We particularly challenge the tensions between being/not being seen, and the paradox of invisibility and visibility. Indeed, attempts to trouble the conventions of sexuality as oppositions to the tyranny of the normal (C Lord & R. Meyer 2019) are implicitly woven into the historical fabric of the representation of sexualities and bodies.
 
Cultural artefacts representing sexualities and disabilities tended to be seen as transgressive such as disabled pornography or images within popular culture: what explains this shift from taboo to transgression? Why the widespread provocation? This conference aims to juxtapose “conventional” depictions of sexualities in/and disabilities with recent cultural artefacts which reveal shifting paradigms in the fields of visual art, literature, film, pop culture, pornography and aesthetic theory. 

Questions we ask will also include: How do we exist as a/sexualised beings if we are not seen and feel invisible? What are the erotic potentialities of invisibilised bodes if any? What do we lose or gain (within a dialogue of desire) by becoming visible and accepted as part of mainstream culture?
 
For these topics we welcome papers/workshop proposals/performances (300 words max) that focus on sexualities and disabilities and speak to the fields of:
 

• Age Studies 
• Comparative Literature 
• Crip studies 
• History of Art  
• Media and Communication 
• Museography 
• Narrative Enquiry  
• Photography 
• Queer Studies 
• SOGI & Refugee Studies
• Translation Studies 
• Trauma Studies 
• Visual Arts 

 
Timeline:

Deadline for abstract submission  Friday 20 August  2021
Answers from organisers:               Friday 27 August 2021
Online Seminar:                                Friday 12 & Saturday 13 November 2021
 
Contacts:                                     
[email protected] 
[email protected]