Cultural Skin Studies

The reading group meets 4 times a year online, currently at 2 PM GMT on selected Fridays in February, May, August and November. We are an international group and our members work across different time periods, literary cultures, and theoretical bases; we warmly welcome anyone who would like to participate – whether you are new to the field or an established scholar.

Each Reading Group focuses on discussion of a selected piece of skin studies criticism, and/or feedback on work in progress from a group member; we also have time for open discussion on group members’ latest activities, current projects, and for any questions or advice sought on work in progress.

To join the group, please email culturalskinstudies@gmail.com, or get in touch with us individually via the contact page. Details of reading groups are circulated via our mailing list: please let us know when emailing if you are happy for us to subscribe you to this.

Future reading group dates:

Friday, 12 May 2023 – 2 PM GMT

Friday, 18 August 2023 – 2 PM GMT

In previous reading groups, we have discussed the following published material:

Bruce Holsinger, “Ecocodicology”, postmedieval 13, (2022): 273-291.

Emily Senior, “Skin, Textuality, and Colonial Feeling” in The Caribbean and the Medical Imagination, 1764–1834: Slavery, Disease and Colonial Modernity (Cambridge, 2018), 89-121.

Heidi Kellett, “‘Skin Portraiture’ in the Age of Bio Art: Bodily Boundaries, Technology and Difference in Contemporary Visual Culture.” Body & Society 24.1-2 (2018): 137-165.

Anna Lafont, “How Skin Color Became a Racial Marker: Art Historical Perspectives on Race.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 51.1 (2017): 89-113. Marc Lafrance, “Skin Studies. Past, Present, Future”, Body and Society 24.1 (2018): 3-32.