Call for Papers

Sleep(less) Beds: Awakening, Journey, Movement, Stasis

Representations and meanings of the bed / bedroom space in history, the arts, society, culture, philosophy

This call for papers asks you to examine the bed / bed space / sleep / sleeplessness across media and the arts; across societies and eras. What are the functions, rules, morals, design, meanings given to ‘the bed’?

The bed (room) might be taken as the site of extremes of human emotion: Passion (sexual); Anger (violence, rape, argument); Sadness (death, sickness, and mourning); Joy (childbirth, conception). The bed might also represent domestitude, alienation, boredom or study. They indicate wealth or poverty, privacy or togetherness. They can be sites of voyeurism or sites of travel, a place of protest or a place of horror.

This interdisciplinary issue welcomes papers from across academic disciplines. Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to:

• Changing / divergent function of the bed
• The bed as a site of transgression
• Dreaming, travelling, exploration, fantasy/em>
• The bed as a site of retreat / comfort
• The social function of the bed
• Changing styles of beds and bedrooms
• The bed(room) in film, literature, or art
• The politics of beds / sleep