CFP: Changing Understandings of Body Image

'The changing requirements of beauty'

‘The changing requirements of beauty’ AHRC launches 1 January 2015 with the launch of the website www.birmingham.ac.uk/beautydemandshttp://www.birmingham.ac.uk/beautydemands

> . The network will hold a number of events including four multi-disciplinary workshops (of 15 people), a mini-conference (with keynote by Susan Bordo) and a wrap, policy-focused event.

Workshop 1: ‘Changing Understandings of Body Image’
University of Warwick, hosted by Fiona MacCallum (Psychology) on 4-5th March
This workshop will consider changing body image. It will consider perceptions of 'normal', 'healthy' and 'perfect', conceptually, as they figure in the understandings of women's and girls' self-images, and how they are understood in current practice and regulation. The extent to which the requirements of beauty are becoming more dominant for women of all types (and increasingly men); as the 'minimal requirements' extend and are required of more, perhaps all, women (for instance, sportswomen, politicians and professionals). The way concepts function to support such demands will also be considered, for instance, deviance from normality is a criteria used to justify surgery. Such criteria both influence concepts of normality (as they define abnormal) and are also influenced by such concepts, as aesthetic concerns become medicalised.

We encourage abstracts for participation in this workshop from post-graduate students, early career academics and academics at all levels. Please submit abstracts by email using the title “beauty demands workshop 1”. Abstracts should be submitted by 16th January to Heather Widdows ([email protected][email protected]>). Abstracts should be around 500 words and should state whether the author is a post-graduate or early career researcher. The budget will cover reasonable travel and accommodation costs for UK researchers.

Confirmed speakers for this workshop:
Rachel Calogero
Rachel is Reader in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. She works on problems of (and solutions to) objectification of others and self-objectification and in the social psychology of gender, class, and inequality.
Clare Chambers
Clare Chambers is University Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Cambridge. She is author of Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice and one of her areas of specialism is feminism, including the body, appearance norms and personal relationships.
Jean McHale
Jean is Professor of Healthcare Law at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy. She is interested in the legal regulation of cosmetic procedures at both domestic and EU level and has a special interest in  relation to children and cosmetic surgery.
Annabel Mednick
Annabel is a figurative artist interested in how face, body and identity are discovered, represented and perceived in portraiture, and how this relates to our intimate feelings about beauty and ageing, both of ourselves and of others. This includes looking at the layers of image that we apply when we present ourselves publicly, through expression, clothing, make-up and, ultimately, cosmetic surgery and body modification. The workshop will include a demonstration of Annabel’s work.

Confirmed speakers at future network events include:
Susan Bordo, Sarah Grogan, Chris Khoo, Carolyn Mair, James Partridge, Nicola Ramsey, Viren Swami, and Shirley Tate, and further CfPs will follow for future events.
Upcoming network events:
Workshop 2 (invite only)
Professionals, practitioners and beauty norms (3rd & 4th June 2015)
Nuffield Council of Bioethics, London, hosted by Hugh Whittall, Director Nuffield Council of Bioethics

Conference (all welcome)
Beauty Demands 28 July
University of Birmingham, keynote, Susan Bordo.

Workshop 3 (invite only)
Globalisation of beauty (14th & 15th Oct 2015)
University of Birmingham, hosted by Heather Widdows (Philosophy) and Jean McHale (Law)

Workshop 4: (invite only)

'Routine maintenance' and exceptional procedures (Feb/March 2016 – date tbc)
Manchester Metropolitan University, hosted by Melanie Latham (Law)