Dying for Sex: Cultural and Forensic Narratives of Auto-Erotic Death

Location
Nuffield G13 (R9 on map)
Dates
Wednesday 19 March 2014 (18:00-19:00)
Contact

Admission free, booking recommended. Please email artsandscience@contacts.bham.ac.uk to reserve a place, and be sure to include your name, email address, the event title and date.

AS-black
Arts & Science Festival 2014

In this illustrated talk, Professor Lisa Downing explores how auto-erotic death has been understood and represented in narratives drawn from four fields: media representation, forensic psychiatry and pathology, literary fiction, and internet humour.

What do representations and explanations of auto-erotic death tell us about mainstream cultural understandings of sex and gender? What can we learn about the assumptions and biases guiding perceptions of normal and abnormal sexuality by looking at discourses surrounding extreme bodily practices that lead to death?

This event is presented as part of Arts & Science Festival 2014, a week-long celebration of ideas, research and collaboration across campus. For details of the full programme, visit: www.birmingham.ac.uk/artsandsciencefestival.