Date : 2017-10-04
Time : 12:30-14:00
Venue : 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.