Fantastic Body Transformations

This project concentrates on representations of the transformable, unstable, metamorphic body in British literature from pre-Romanticism to posthumanism. Its focus on shifting shapes is predicated on both the transformative aesthetic of fantasy, traceable to Ovid`s Metamorphoses, and on shifting concepts of the human body in Western culture. It breaks radically new ground by exploring fantastic body transformations in their relation to a) changing ideas about the body, b) changing forms and generic developments, and c) the creative processes by which fantasy subverts the status quo and presents the impossible as conceivable. The necessity of investigating this literature comprehensively arises from currents and practices in contemporary cultural and social life intimately connected with the body. Bioengineering, cloning and artificial reproduction, cosmetic surgery, gene therapy, computer surgery, organ transplantation, and information technology are suggestive of dramatic shifts in the conceptualisation of the human body (the body as animal, the body as machine, the body as a system of atoms and chemical functions, the body as cyborg, as electronic personality, as a decipherable text written in DNA code, as a commodity, or a store of reusable organs). Fantasy is the prime area in literature for exploring this metabody, which multiply interrelates with an ethos and aesthetic necessarily based on transformation. For fantasy permanently changes in response to the existing world, forever modifying or producing new structures and forms. Gothic, utopia and dystopia, romance, science-fiction, fairy- and wonder tale - each creates its own cognitive and emotional otherworld, employing shapeshifting to its particular ends (for producing horror, for creating a carnival world, for effecting a wish-fulfilment pattern, etc) and constantly re-negotiating the borderline between that which exists and that which cannot, or at a given time could not, exist. Combining central interests in the humanities and cultural studies, the aim of this project is to develop a theoretical model on the basis of which body transformations in British fantastic literature from approximately 1760 to the present can be systematically described and categorised within the cultural context. These categories will not simply constitute a typology of shapeshifting, but form a grammar of fantasy involving cultural, conceptual, and aesthetic aspects of transformation. Methodologically, this involves the examination of both literary texts and texts from other disciplines traditionally concerned with the body: medicine, biology, psychology and psychoanalysis, philosophy and ethics. By exploring this interrelation between shifting shapes, shifting ideas and shifting forms, this theory will make an innovative contribution to research on fantasy, the body, and metamorphosis. The results of the project for which funding is applied include: a monograph, "Body Transformations in British Fantasy from pre-Romanticism to Posthumanism", as well as smaller publications the organisation of an international conference on "Body Transformations in Anglophone Cultures" in October 2005 the edition of a collection of essays an interactive CD-Rom, offering an intriguing journey through fantastic body transformations and their reverberations in film, visitor attractions, theme events, exhibitions, etc. a bibliographical database concerning the primary texts to be published on the internet.

This project concentrates on representations of the transformable, unstable, metamorphic body in British literature from pre-Romanticism to posthumanism. Its focus on shifting shapes is predicated on both the transformative aesthetic of fantasy, traceable to Ovid`s Metamorphoses, and on shifting concepts of the human body in Western culture. It breaks radically new ground by exploring fantastic body transformations in their relation to a) changing ideas about the body, b) changing forms and generic developments, and c) the creative processes by which fantasy subverts the status quo and presents the impossible as conceivable. The necessity of investigating this literature comprehensively arises from currents and practices in contemporary cultural and social life intimately connected with the body. Bioengineering, cloning and artificial reproduction, cosmetic surgery, gene therapy, computer surgery, organ transplantation, and information technology are suggestive of dramatic shifts in the conceptualisation of the human body (the body as animal, the body as machine, the body as a system of atoms and chemical functions, the body as cyborg, as electronic personality, as a decipherable text written in DNA code, as a commodity, or a store of reusable organs). Fantasy is the prime area in literature for exploring this metabody, which multiply interrelates with an ethos and aesthetic necessarily based on transformation. For fantasy permanently changes in response to the existing world, forever modifying or producing new structures and forms. Gothic, utopia and dystopia, romance, science-fiction, fairy- and wonder tale - each creates its own cognitive and emotional otherworld, employing shapeshifting to its particular ends (for producing horror, for creating a carnival world, for effecting a wish-fulfilment pattern, etc) and constantly re-negotiating the borderline between that which exists and that which cannot, or at a given time could not, exist. Combining central interests in the humanities and cultural studies, the aim of this project is to develop a theoretical model on the basis of which body transformations in British fantastic literature from approximately 1760 to the present can be systematically described and categorised within the cultural context. These categories will not simply constitute a typology of shapeshifting, but form a grammar of fantasy involving cultural, conceptual, and aesthetic aspects of transformation. Methodologically, this involves the examination of both literary texts and texts from other disciplines traditionally concerned with the body: medicine, biology, psychology and psychoanalysis, philosophy and ethics. By exploring this interrelation between shifting shapes, shifting ideas and shifting forms, this theory will make an innovative contribution to research on fantasy, the body, and metamorphosis. The results of the project for which funding is applied include: a monograph, "Body Transformations in British Fantasy from pre-Romanticism to Posthumanism", as well as smaller publications the organisation of an international conference on "Body Transformations in Anglophone Cultures" in October 2005 the edition of a collection of essays an interactive CD-Rom, offering an intriguing journey through fantastic body transformations and their reverberations in film, visitor attractions, theme events, exhibitions, etc. a bibliographical database concerning the primary texts to be published on the internet.