The interdisciplinary conference focuses on the bodies and embodiments of spirits, their (im-)materialities, and the bodily transformations, which they may be subject to in different socio-cultural contexts. Contributions analyze the embodied experiences of asymmetrical dependencies among humans and spirits and how the sensory experiences of interdependence are negotiated in their interactions. They examine and compare the particular (historical) moments and conditions under which these bodily transformations occur and how they can influence understandings of human–nonhuman interdependence.
Research Group “Marking Power: Embodied Dependencies, Haptic Regimes and Body Modification”
The research group focuses on the history of touch and different forms of body modification from a historical and anthropological perspective. It analyzes body marks and practices of marking that represent and have actively (re)created asymmetrical and embodied dependencies. It discusses (historical) practices of body modification as well as the bodies and material objects involved in these practices.