Colloque – The body and seduction. From charm to manipulation

International Symposium – The body and seduction. From charm to manipulation

UVSQ, 8-9 décembre 2011

Call for Papers

To arrive before April 9, 2011

Presentation :

Seduction, which appeared for the first time in a 1979 conference in Brussels, is today a real subject of study. The conference led by Cécile Dauphin and Arlette Farge in 2001 illustrates this development. It dealt with the history of seduction, from the 17th to the 20th century, highlighting the impact of that subject in light of gender studies. Combining sedition and domination, seduction involves the rhetoric of bodies as much as the lying verb. However, though numerous projects have been led on the subject, seduction has always been considered in terms of the corrupting word. The challenge of this new conference is to abandon verbal seduction to focus on the image of seduction and the body’s rhetoric, “first support of this gigantic undertaking of seduction”, according to Baudrillard. Televisual, cinematic or pictural, the production of seductive pictures influenced by advertising, the media and art is pervading our society more and more. What are the aesthetic codes that govern these representations? Does a real politics exist, artistic and in advertising, or are these
fields linked together?  We will be interested in the modi operandi of seduction and its registers, but also in its impact on various publics. The approach of the international conference is cultural and interdisciplinary.

Possible topics (not exhaustive):
 The body’s seductive language (play with gaze, dance and voice, mirror and veil symbols)
 Cinematic and televisual idols
 Correspondence games between music, literature and the visual arts
 Representations of hetero/homo-sexuality
 Corporal aesthetics in the service of persuasion
 Seduction play (make-up, disguise, and retouching)

The conference will bring together specialists and researchers selected from attribution calls. We encourage proposals from the fields of history, cinema, semiology, literature and the performing arts.

Organization Committee :

Christian Delporte, CHCSC, université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
Audrey Hermel, CHCSC, université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

The Proposals :

Submissions for individual papers may be in French or English and should be in the form of an abstract of approximately 350 words, complete with bibliography, address and telephone number and affiliation, and should be sent by e-mail to Audrey Hermel (colloque.seduction@hotmail.com) or Christian Delporte (christian.delporte@uvsq.fr) before April 9th, 2011.
A scientic committee will examine each proposal and will respond in June.
There are no registration fees. However, travel, subsistence and accommodation expenses must be paid for by the participant.

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