Cogent Arts & Humanities

Abjection Embodied: Understanding the body as subversive

Cogent Arts & Humanities is pleased to welcome you to submit your research to the Article Collection "Abjection Embodied: Understanding the body as subversive".

Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection and the grotesque have become familiar terrain in interdisciplinary studies interested in embodiment and its position in (social) space. Indeed, the abject is what ‘disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’ (Kristeva 1982, p. 4). Matters of the abject coalesce as corporeal states to disrupt ideologies under heteropatriarchy, including the subversion of white supremacy, ableism, ageism, and neoliberal capitalism by way of the fat body, the trans body, the pregnant body, and so forth. Trending literary genres such as ‘Sad Girl Lit’, ‘Weird Girl Lit’, and female cannibalism, for instance, depict states of abject embodiment that are reflective distinct social, cultural, and political contexts, particularly pertaining to the realities of a post-#MeToo world (such as the rise of the manosphere, MRAs, anti-feminism, the ‘tradwife’, and incel culture), the increase of right wing attacks on reproductive and queer rights, the gendered social injustices exacerbated by the pandemic, the rise of Black and Trans Lives Matter movements, and the use of sexual violence against women as a strategy of war, mostly recently witnessed in Ukraine and in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The most recent surge in the cannibal genre, for example, tends to focus on the female cannibal, who indulges in human flesh as an agential mechanism of ambition, sexuality, and revenge against patriarchal models of containment and control. The figure is one of appetite and desire, challenging gendered notions of feminine passivity, for example, and insisting on the monstrous in order to reconfigure socio-cultural dynamics reliant on structures of predator/prey. In this way, the boundaries between the private and public self (and body) collapses, becoming the ultimate act of (abject) incorporation, transgression, and liminality. In this context, this collection seeks to examine how representation of othered bodies in abject terms might function as acts of disturbance and offer the opportunity for understanding—and sometimes challenging—patriarchy, neo-liberal capitalism, white feminism, and the racial, sexual, and gendered divisions which continue to plague the contemporary moment.

The Collection offers a timely and important study, recognising the increasing impact of the manosphere and right-wing politics which seek to marginalise bodies deemed ‘other’ (i.e. female, fat, ageing, bodies of colour, disabled), particularly by way of body politics. Indeed, representations of the abject and grotesque offer critical frameworks for the ways in which performances of the body are surveilled, disciplined, and punished under heteropatriachy, white-supremacy, and neoliberal capitalism. Alternatively, such representations also present the potential for subversion and transgression, and thus work to dismantle such ideological structures. The Collection also privileges an inherently interdisciplinary and intersectional study, bringing together literary and cultural studies by way of a feminist lens, and drawing on theories relating to the body, gender and sexuality, critical race theory, and neo-liberal capitalism.

As noted, this collection welcomes submissions of academic articles in the following disciplines:
Communication Studies, Cultural Studies, Film & Television Studies, History, Literature & Criticism, Media Studies, Music, Philosophy & Religion, and Visual & Performing Arts. Specifically, research should consider the ways in which abjection and the grotesque are tied to embodiment. Subtopics may include:

• Food, eating, and/or subversive acts of consumption
• Politics of smell
• Body politics of the Manosphere
• Representations of the maternal
• Gendered body modification practices
• Ageing bodies (particularly peri/menopausal bodies)
• Tensions between ‘wellness’ and fatness
• Embodied violence
• Racialised and colonised bodies
• Transgressive sexual practices
•  Illness and its embodied containment
• Representations of anti-romance
• Affective embodiment
• Leaking bodies

Meet the Guest Advisor

Emily Fuller is an award-winning scholar and teacher in contemporary and genre fiction at Deakin University (AU), focussing on representations of transgressive embodiment. Using an intersectional approach via gender, race, age, disability and fat studies, her research is interested in socio-cultural zeitgeists such as 'Sad Girl Lit', the manosphere, heterofatalism, and subversive acts of consumption.