Merleau-Ponty and Embodiment: Between the Cognitive, Aesthetic, and Socio-Political

47TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MERLEAU-PONTY CIRCLE

Dec 4th – Dec 6th 2023 | Deakin University, Melbourne (Narrm), Australia | In-person and virtual (hybrid)

“Le corps est notre moyen général d’avoir un monde. / The body is our general means of having a world.”

Merleau-Ponty’s seminal work on embodiment has been of enduring interest and influence in a wide range of fields. It has, for example, played a significant role in research on embodied cognition and enactivism, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, affectivity, movement, art, place, and more. Although sometimes criticized for providing an account of embodiment that is too general, Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical foregrounding of embodiment has also facilitated critical phenomenological studies attending to the specificities of how particular bodies inhabit social and political environments, through considerations of race, gender, disability, ageing, and illness. This year’s meeting of the IMPC seeks to bring together these rich and varied strands of enquiry, in order to think with, against, and beyond Merleau-Ponty’s own contributions on the lived body.

Only its third time outside North America, this year’s meeting of IMPC will take place in Melbourne (Narrm), Australia, on the traditional and unceded lands of the Kulin Nation.

The conference is being directed by Helen Ngo and Jack Reynolds.

Keynote and plenary speakers will be announced shortly. The conference will be held at the centrally located and accessible Deakin Downtown campus, and recommended accommodation options will be provided nearer the date. Registration will be required; this page will be updated when registration deadlines have been set.