Registration is now OPEN for the one-day conference “The Ideal and the Ugly: bodies through senses, media and cultural memory” happening at the University of Warwick (and online) on Friday 24th October 2025! We have an exciting schedule lined up, which can be accessed here.
The event is free to attend, with coffee/tea, light refreshments, and lunch provided.
Registration is essential. You can register your attendance (whether in-person or online) via this link: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/SWPkrNRD6w
If you are joining us in person, please complete the form by Friday 3rd October so we can make final arrangements for access and catering. Please note that in-person spaces are limited, and registration may close earlier if these spaces fill up.
The online registration will remain open until 20th October.
If you register for the conference and eventually have to withdraw from participation, please email us (kk450@leicester.ac.uk or Elena.Claudi@warwick.ac.uk) as soon as possible to let us know that you can no longer participate. This will allow us to open up spots for other participants.
If you would like to chair a panel or volunteer to help in any other way on the day, please indicate this in the registration form – it’s a great way to support the conference and engage with the speakers.
What’s the conference about:
The “ideal body” has been widely explored and theorized across various disciplines, including history, art, sociology, psychology and medicine. It is an ever-evolving concept shaped and defined by societal norms, personal experiences, and cultural portrayals.
This one-day conference aims to understand the concept of the “ideal” body, the responses to bodies that are deemed “non-ideal” (whether in art, text, or in real life), the emotional experience of people that fall within that category, and the extent to which our senses and culture shape our interactions with such bodies. It invites an interdisciplinary perspective on the definition of the “other” from antiquity to modernity through different media. Through this event we intend to create a space to interrogate the boundaries between “ideal” and “ugly”, challenge our assumptions and beliefs.
The conference will feature a keynote address by Dr. Anastasia Meintani whose research focuses on the representations of the body in Greek and Roman art and challenges traditional notions of the “ideal”. Her most recent book, The Grotesque Body in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, represents a key text in the field.
The conference is designed for audiences interested in how certain bodies are represented and “othered.” Although the main scope is antiquity, it includes contributions from other periods and disciplines, encouraging wide-ranging discussion and interdisciplinary networking.
For further information and queries contact Katarina Kompauerova or Elena Claudi: kk450@leicester.ac.uk or Elena.Claudi@warwick.ac.uk.