Sense and Sexuality Conference

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Sense-Sexuality-Programme

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University of Silesia in Katowice

Faculty of Humanities

Institute of Literary Studies

H/Story Research Group

Centre for Old Norse and Old English Studies

V International H/Story Conference

Sense and Sexuality: Erotic Discourses in/of History

Katowice, Poland, Sept. 22^nd–23^rd 2023

CINiBA University Library and Scientific Information Centre

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Everything in the world is about sex,” goes an apocryphal Oscar Wilde saying. Everything “except sex. Sex is about power.”

The intricate and compelling entanglement of sex with history – with politics and power, with human experience and narratives – is perhaps best illustrated by the role both sexual encounter and erotic desire play in some of the oldest texts of literature that survive today. Indeed, among the earliest stories known to mankind, the erotic aspect frequently appears in their pivotal points. Such is the beginning of what is arguably the oldest written narrative existing on Earth, the Epic of Gilgamesh: after an uninterrupted act of coitus lasting for six days and six nights between a sacred mortal prostitute Shamhat and Enkidu, the latter abandons the animals among whom he has lived and becomes human, fit not only to be King Gilgamesh’s friend, but also to tame the wild ways of the king himself. In another epic, the oldest continually told and retold, a ten-year siege of Troy is the result of the erotic desire, both that of the three competing goddesses, and of a man to a woman. The Romans and later the English positioned this narrative at the heart of their national myths of origin. In history proper, the erotic has frequently been at the centre of political crises. It is enough to mention selected historical figures whose identities have largely been shaped by the associations with the erotic: from Cleopatra, Messalina, Eadwig, Edward II, Henry VIII, Catherine the Great and Marquis de Sade, to John Profumo, Bill Clinton, General Petraeus, and Donald Trump.

What, then, are the multiple dimensions of the connections between human erotic desire and the course of events shaped by it? And what are we to make of the ways in which historical narratives of desire have been used and abused by those who found in them convenient tools of control and influence? In his classic work on the history of sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that it is the “existence in our era of a discourse in which sex, the revelation of truth, the overturning of global laws, the proclamation of a new day to come, and the promise of certain felicity are linked together. Today it is sex that serves as a support for the ancient form – so familiar and important in the West – of preaching.” Variants of such preaching have been present in numerous erotic narratives, which have been both liberating and limiting, enlightening and deceptive, emancipating and controlling. Thus, by engaging with the erotic in history, we engage with the past and present discourses and senses of power.

With all this and much more in mind, the H/Story Research Group invites scholars working in various disciplines and fields of study to participate in the V International H/Story Conference, Sense and Sexuality: Erotic Discourses in/of History. Its aim is to consider the points of intersection between broadly understood ideas of eroticism, sexuality, and history, and the ways their senses have been woven into narratives of the past as well into the ways of narrating the past. We intend the conference to open possibilities of engaging in a discussion concerning the representations of these intersections in different media across cultures and centuries.

Specific topics may address, but are not limited to: