Cabrini to host Body Image Conference

By Erica Abbott
October 15, 2014

What shapes the way we think of body image? This is a pinnacle question that will be getting discussed at the National Undergraduate Conference on Body Image. Various events will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Oct. 22 and 23, with conferences, keynote speakers, a performance from “In My Body: The Musical,” concurrent sessions and workshops, according to Cabrini’s website.

The conference will cover topics such as cross-cultural beauty and body standards, the role of the media and advertising in creating, perpetuating or resisting standards of beauty, representations in literature, sexualization of the female body and more. “It’s an academic and intellectual conversation that will create awareness of what shapes how we think of ourselves and others,” Dr. Michelle Filling-Brown, associate professor of English, said.

Filling-Brown created this event through a grant from the Katherine Alexandra Foundation, which, according to their website, “promotes an improved quality of life by enhancing the whole person – inside and out. “This helped Filling-Brown to develop co-curricular programming to support curriculum within the women’s studies concentration within the English department. “I’m very passionate about women’s studies, gender issues and positive body image and am driven by the energy of our English majors and alumni who are also so passionate about body image issues,” Filling-Brown said.

Other panels within the conference will include discussions on how faith impacts how we treat the body, how illness impacts the body, social media discussions, construction of racial identity and creative works on body image. The presentations will come from students all over the country.

The conference will feature keynote speaker Kate Bornstein, a world-renowned gender theorist and body image advocate, plenary speaker Dr. Carol Henderson, vice provost for diversity at the University of Delaware who will be presenting “Black Bodies in Peril:  On Woundings, Rites of Passage, Re(e)al and Imagined Threats,” which will focus on the black male body in the media, such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown according to Filling-Brown.

“It’s exciting to have students and faculty from so many schools coming to our campus to discuss body image through an interdisciplinary lens,” Filling-Brown said. “I hope students appreciate the multiple ways to approach body studies and will engage in rich conversations about body image.”

LOQation’s coverage on how body image has made it’s place on campus

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Erica Abbott

Hi my name is Erica Abbott and I am the News Editor for the Loquitur this year. I am currently a junior Communication major, Spanish minor. I am also a social buzz editorial intern with Business 2 Community. I am very interested in the arts, social media, photography and writing.

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