Pain and Pleasure
Conference Venue: Adonis Room.
“I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or pain, either more or less, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings?”
Plato, Philebus
Traditionally, pain and pleasure have been studied separately and divided into physical and mental types, thus widening the gulf and obscuring the intersection zone between the two precepts. Modern studies and researches, however, have stressed the intricate and close relationship between the pleasurable and the painful. Paradoxically, the experience of pain can generate pleasure and suffering can bring about liberation and ecstasy, thus paving the path for the birth of copious contemporary studies that overcome this chasm in human sensations.
From classicism to postmodernism, the universal human experiences of pain and pleasure are investigated in literature, science, history, linguistics and cultural studies either as two separate or two indistinguishable concepts.
In this context, the steering committee welcomes individual and panel proposals to investigate alternative reflections on the themes of pain and pleasure.
Potential topics of exploration may include but are not necessarily limited to:
- Pain, pleasure and the human body.
- Pain, pleasure and Love/ desire / sexuality.
- Pain, pleasure and masochism / sadism
- Pain, pleasure and torture/capital punishment.
- Pain, pleasure and censorship.
- Pain, pleasure in literature and literary genres.
- Pain, pleasure in Media.
- Pain, pleasure in discourse/ rhetoric.
- Pain, pleasure and politics/ power.
- Pain, pleasure and religion/mortification
- Pain, pleasure and psychoanalysis.
- Pain, pleasure and Empathy/sympathy/pity.
- Pain, pleasure and catharsis.
- Pain, pleasure and identity.
- Pain, pleasure and/in writing
- Pain, pleasure and mythology.
- Pain, Pleasure in/and theories.
- Pain, pleasure in/ and teaching and learning
- Pain, pleasure in/¨and language
- Pain, pleasure and philosophy (Utilitarianism)
- Pain, pleasure and aesthetics
- Pain, pleasure in celebrations
Abstract Submission:
The Conference Steering Committee is delighted to invite contributors to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words and a short bio-note to the following email address: soussepainpleasure@yahoo.com
The deadline for submission of proposals is February 25th 2020.