[News] Fwd: Call for Papers:The Cultural Politics of Toilets; HU Berlin; November 18-20, 2021

[Jan S. Hutta]

Passend zur letzten GeoRundmail, so might be of interest to some..
j

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Von: 	Eva Boesenberg <eva.boesenberg at cms.hu-berlin.de> 
<mailto:eva.boesenberg at cms.hu-berlin.de>

	


"Everybody's Business: Toilets as a Contested Space"

Conference at Humboldt University, Berlin
November 18-20, 2021

Call for Papers

Located in domestic realms as well as between public and private 
spheres, toilets are secret and discreet, liminal, as much as eminently 
open political, and often contested spaces. They offer safety and 
comfort for ordinary physical necessities for the more privileged, open 
up room for diverse transgressive moves, and have been an issue of 
politics for centuries. Toilets facilitate movement through public 
spaces, significantly co-constructing social hierarchies such as gender, 
sexuality, 'race,' age, religion, and ability. Who has access to 
(public) toilets and who does not? Whose needs are served, and how? 
These questions are currently the subject of legal battles and 
controversial debates not only in the US. At the same time, restrooms 
are sites of potential and social interaction in which physical 
closeness and shared urges translate into intimacies at different 
levels. Toilet spaces are also culturally specific, the result of 
distinct practices: There are water cultures and paper cultures, with 
toilet paper users divided into "folders" and "ballers." Design and 
architecture impact on whether the use of restrooms is experienced as 
safe, relaxing, and even pleasurable – or its opposite.
     The meaning of toilets is also psychological and emotional, as is 
attested by the toilet paper ‘shortage’ during the current Covid-19 
crisis – not necessarily a German idiosyncrasy. Release of one's bodily 
fluids is correlated with a sense of heightened vulnerability. 
Psychoanalytically and culturally, feces are linked to conceptions of 
the abject and death – as well as to money and economics. Toiletries, 
bathroom design, and sanitation infrastructure constitute a huge 
(consumer) market. Finally, the ways in which we manage the disposal of 
bodily waste has enormous ecological repercussions. To discuss restroom 
space and toilets, then, is not only to engage with past and present 
practices, but also with possible futures. Accordingly, in 19 November 
2001, the World Toilet Organization was founded and its inaugural World 
Toilet Summit drew global attention to what is considered a sanitation 
crisis. Thus, in one way or another, toilets – and their absence – 
figure prominently in our personal lives, in world politics, and in the 
arts and culture. Yet even though they frame an ordinary practice 
essential for well-being and survival, toilets and the multiple issues 
and questions they raise have so far received limited attention in 
cultural studies.
The conference takes the twentieth anniversary of the World Toilet 
Organization and of World Toilet Day in November 2021 as an occasion to 
explore the cultural politics of toilets and the topic of restroom 
cultures in a transdisciplinary, intercultural manner, inviting 
contributions from cultural and literary studies, history, sociology, 
and other pertinent disciplines. Possible issues for presentations 
include, but are not limited to, the following:

representations of restrooms in literature and film
restroom access for trans and inter
doing gender in the restroom
cripping the restroom
the role of toilets in LGBTIQ history
restrooms and 'race'
toilets and settler colonialism
(post)colonial perspectives on toilet cultures
restroom design and architecture
ecological dimensions of toilets and sanitation infrastructure

Please send abstracts of approximately one page via email to:

Prof. Dr. Eva Boesenberg           Prof. Dr. Sabine Sielke
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Institut für Anglistik, 
Amerikanistik Humboldt-Universität und Keltologie
Unter den Linden 6             Nordamerikastudienprogramm
10099 Berlin                     Rheinische 
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; Regina-Pacis-Weg 5, 53113 Bonn
eva.boesenberg at staff.hu-berlin.de 
<mailto:eva.boesenberg at staff.hu-berlin.de> office at nap-uni-bonn.de 
<mailto:office at nap-uni-bonn.de>



Please send your abstracts via email to both addresses by February 28, 2021.

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