Seminar One: Augmentation, Disability and Embodiment

Sadler Seminar Series 16/17

Professor Sarah Whatley and Kate Marsh (Coventry)

Tuesday 18 October 2016, 2-4pm

Leeds Humanities Research Institute, 29-31 Clarendon Place, Leeds, LS2 9JT 

What does it mean to be a human body? Is a prosthetic limb a body-part or a tool? Can a body be replaced by an avatar? How do the values and terminologies of augmentation and disability play out together within our technologised society? In contemporary philosophy, bodies are often described as assemblages, posthuman, fluid in their boundaries, and multiple in their identities. Theories and practices of embodiment both support and confound such descriptions, exploring boundaries, extensions, and permutations of bodies in relation to lived experience. Opening with a series of short provocations by invited speakers, this seminar will discuss embodiment and bodily experience in relation to augmented and disabled bodies. Speakers include Sarah Whatley, Professor of Dance and Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded research project InVisible Difference: Dance, Disability and Law at Coventry University, and Kate Marsh, disabled performer and recent doctoral candidate, Coventry University.