Conceptual Metaphors and Body Symbolism
An international and interdisciplinary two-day workshop on conceptual metaphors and body symbolism.
Main content
This workshop about metaphors and body symbolism will bring together researchers from Bergen, Prague, Oxford and Yale. The participants will give talks from diverse perspectives and disciplines, including history of religions, comparative mythology, linguistics, semiotics, psychology, law, and philosophy, and present case studies from various cultures – Ancient Egypt, India, Greece and medieval as well as modern Europe. Each of them will give their perspective on how the image of human body is metaphorically used in culture, what function it fulfils, how the meanings are condensed and transformed, and how we can understand and describe it today within our scholarly discourse. The comparison of diverse fields and case studies should lead to a formulation of similarities, differences, and certain recurrent principles.
Guests, especially those working on the topic of metaphors, are welcome to join the sessions and take part in the discussions. Discussions will be the core of the workshop, as each 20-minute talk will be followed by 30 minutes of discussion.
The workshop will take place at the SVT UiB, Parkveien 9 (https://www.uib.no/en/svt).
For more information contact Jan Kozák.
Programme:
Thursday, 9 May
8:15 – 8:30 Meeting up (PARKVEIEN 9)
8:30 – 9:00 Welcoming Address by Jan Kozák and Jens Eike Schnall: Overview of the Programme
Session I: Introductory and Comparative
9:00 – 9:45 Jan Kozák (Bergen): Conceptual Metaphor, Analogic Thinking and Body Symbolism
10:00 – 10:45 Jens Eike Schnall (Bergen): The Body Politic and Conceptual Metaphor
11:00 – 11:45 Barbora Sojková (Oxford): Talking Heads
Lunch break
Session II: Medieval Myth and Religion
13:00 – 13:45 Marie Novotná (Prague): Was Berserk a Bear?
14:00 – 14:45 Eldar Heide (Bergen): Sexual Metaphors Conveying the Essence of Old Norse Mythology?
15:00 – 15:45 Jiří Dynda (Prague): Body and Corporeality in the Slavic Anthropogonic Narratives
16:00 – 16:30 Presentation of the research groups in Bergen, MSCA and other networking possibilities.
Friday, 10 May
Session III: The Cultures of Antiquity
9:00 – 9:45 Jørgen Bakke (Bergen): Imaging Bodies in Ancient Greek Culture
10:00 – 10:45 Evelyne Koubková (Yale): Resounding Bodies
11:00 – 11:45 Martin Pehal (Prague): The Wor(l)d is an Image: Bodily Metaphors and Graphic Puns in Ancient Egypt
Lunch break
Session IV: Beyond Religion – Philosophy, Psychiatry, Law
13:00 – 13:45 Rasmus T. Slaattelid (Bergen): Metaphors of the Labyrinth in Philosophy
14:00 – 14:45 Helga Mannsåker (Bergen): The Role of Metaphor in Psychiatric Nomenclature and Discourse
15:00 – 15:45 Helen Leslie (Bergen): The Eyes of Justice: Morality and Body Metaphors in English Legal Texts
16:00 – 16:45 Concluding Discussion and Reflection: Similarities and Diversities
