The conference 'E. T. A. Hoffmann and Other Bodies' will take place on 16th and 17th July at the Taylorian Institute and has received generous funding from the University of Oxford's John Fell Fund, St Peter's College John O'Connor Fund, the Modern Humanities Research Association, the E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft Bamberg, the English Goethe Society, and the Association for German Studies UK and Ireland. This event ignites novel inquiries into Hoffmann’s pioneering literary examination of the body and his engagement with scientific discourses such as artificial life, the embodied brain, and animal magnetism.
The conference has attracted established academics and early career scholars from the UK, Ireland, India, the USA, and across Europe to present papers on diverse themes including automata, virtual reality, childhood development, petrification, aesthetics of the body, pregnancy and maternity, queerness and otherness, disability and artistic practice, and the relationship between mind and body.