Prof. Dr. Beatrix Busse (University of Heidelberg)

Prof. Dr. Annette Kern-Stähler (University of Bern)

The study of the historical and cultural formation of the senses has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years. We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers from medievalists and early modernists (in English literary and cultural studies or in linguistics). Topics may include but are not limited to

• sensory environments
• sensory metaphors
• sensory hierarchies
• sense impairments
• gender and the senses

Papers might explore

• how sensory experiences are expressed and ordered by language
• how literature grows out of and evokes sensory experiences
• how sensations were interpreted in the late medieval and early modern periods
• how the meanings of sensory terms have changed with time
• how the knowledge of sense perception was transmitted

To maximise the interaction among the conference participants, there will be no parallel sessions. The concluding session of the conference will include a panel discussion of the outstanding problems in the fields and the trends for future research.

Confirmed keynote speakers

Professor Vincent Gillespie, University of Oxford

Dr Farah Karim-Cooper, King’s College London

Professor Richard Newhauser, Arizona State University

Please send an abstract (max 250 words) and a bionote by 15 February 2013 to