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Language and embodied sexuality

日期 : 2017-10-04

时间 : 12:30-14:00

地点 : Room 109, Chen Kou Bun Bldg, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Speaker: Brian W. King, Assistant Professor in English, City University of Hong Kong

Moderator: SUEN Yiu Tung, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Language: English

Free Registration: https://goo.gl/jWr592

Abstract: Embodiment has long been of interest to scholars of Language in Society, and yet theoretical discussions of the inseparability of language and the body have been paradoxically minimal until quite recently. Focusing on the processes by which sexualized bodies are understood, this talk outlines the ways in which language and sexuality scholarship can contribute to knowledge of the connectedness of the social and the soma during social interaction. Bodies are both subjective and social; in one sense we have subjective, embodied knowledge of what it means to live in our sexualized bodies and ‘speak from’ them, and in another sense our bodies are also observed from outside and ‘spoken about’ as sexual. What are the implications for language use, intelligibility and sexual agency? The talk also reviews and builds upon recent scholarship that productively troubles reified notions of bodily stability and fluid identities during traversals of online and offline spaces.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Brian W. King’s primary research interest is language use in communities, in particular discursive performances of gender and sexuality, sexual embodiment, computer-mediated communication, sexuality education, and the social construction of space/place. His work is located within sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. At present he sits on the editorial boards for the journals Gender & Language and Journal of Language and Sexuality and is the Reviews Editor for the journal Language in Society. He recently hosted the 9th International Gender and Language Association Conference (IGALA 9) at City University of Hong Kong, where he has been a faculty member in the Department of English since 2012.