37.2611, Calls: Grammars of Sexuality: Forms of Saying, Narrating, Performing (Italy)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2611. Fri Aug 07 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2611, Calls: Grammars of Sexuality: Forms of Saying, Narrating, Performing (Italy)

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Date: 06-Aug-2026
From: Giuseppina Pirozzi [giuseppina.pirozzi at unipr.it]
Subject: Grammars of Sexuality: Forms of Saying, Narrating, Performing


Full Title: Grammars of Sexuality: Forms of Saying, Narrating,
Performing

Date: 10-Dec-2026 - 11-Dec-2026
Location: Parma, Italy
Web Site:
https://www.italianisti.it/news/call-for-papers/cfp-convegno-dottorale-grammatiche-della-sessualita/CFP%20UniPR%20ENG.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): Discipline of Linguistics; Discourse Analysis;
Ling & Literature; Sociolinguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Call Deadline: 30-Sep-2026

Call for Papers:
Introduction
The conference aims to explore, from a critical and interdisciplinary
perspective, the grammars of sexuality, understood both as norm and as
a paradigmatic potential in shaping old and new forms of saying,
narrating, and performing sexual identities, roles, and practices
situated within different discursive, cultural, and social universes.
By grammars we mean, on the one hand, what can be said, narrated, or
performed within a given cultural and social context; and, on the
other, a space in which rules and norms may be imposed, broken, or
reinvented. The grammars of sexuality thus do not simply reflect
existing cultural configurations, but actively participate in them,
contributing to their continuous redefinition.
Sexuality constitutes one of the privileged dimensions in which
language, literature, the arts, and social practices intertwine, shape
one another, and transform over time: indeed, every culture elaborates
its own grammars of sexuality through the languages that describe,
represent, regulate, and censor it. Speaking of sexuality thus means
interrogating its polysemy within a given linguistic and cultural
community at a specific historical moment. Starting from these
premises, the conference intends to promote an interdisciplinary
dialogue on sexuality among young scholars in linguistics, literature,
cinema, and the performing arts, in the belief that the comparison
between different disciplinary and methodological perspectives can
restore its complexity.
For this reason, the conference will be divided into three sections:
Linguistics, Literature, and Performing Arts and Cinema.
Linguistics Section: Grammars of Saying
If conventionally the term ‘grammar’ designates the rules that make
possible the production and interpretation of utterances, in a broader
perspective, it can indicate the set of forms, conventions, codes, and
practices that allow a community to construct meanings. The already
widely discussed perspectives of linguistic relativism have opened up
new conceptions of a grammar unhinged from its authoritarian and
normative nature, moving closer to the notion of a «system» that gives
shape (Sapir & Whorf, 2017). Consistent with the perspectives of this
initiative, grammar is therefore understood in its sense as an
interpretive paradigm of the forms, practices, and identities that
discursively construct the sexual dimension.
If, when we speak of discourse, we refer to «practices which
systematically form the object of which they speak» (Foucault, 1972:
49), then investigating the discursive space of sexuality becomes
essential for a structural reading of its systems across different
spaces, times, and contexts. This space is constituted through the
practical realisations of language in use, that is, through the modes
and practices of communication situated within real contexts of use
(Simpson & Mayr, 2009). A clause is a minimal unit for representing
the world and its reality (Balirano, 2017): it is starting from the
organisation of clauses into discourse that the discursive space is
constituted, structurally holding the revolutionary potential to
establish or overturn regimes of truth, which can function both as
devices of control and as discursive practices of emancipation
(Foucault, 1976).
Following the embodied perspective, if language is not configured as
an abstract and autonomous system, but finds its own anchoring in
bodily experience, then the body constitutes one of the cognitive and
linguistic conditions of sexuality. The verbal dimension stands
alongside forms of the implicit, of silence, of interdiction, of
haptics and proxemics, as well as gesture and embodied communication,
up to signed linguistic forms, showing how meaning is constructed
through the relationship between word, body, space, and context.
The grammars of sexuality can therefore be read as systems of
signification in which bodily experience, language, imagination, and
culture shape one another (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Johnson, 1987;
Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).
Literature Section: Grammars of Narrating
Literature has always been one of the privileged observatories of the
grammars of sexuality. From the anthropological material sedimented in
myth to erotic precept literature, from philosophical reflection on
eros to its reworking within the Christian sphere, motifs related to
sexuality and its representation run through the entire span of Greek,
Latin, and Christian literatures. As Giulia Sissa (2003) writes: «The
sensual nature – that is, infinitely desiring – of eros is the Greek
question par excellence, becomes a crucial Roman question, and
culminates in Christian anguish». This question then traces the entire
arc of the literary tradition, passing from medieval lyric poetry to
Renaissance erotic poetry, and finally arriving at the short and long
forms of modern and contemporary narrative. Far from being a mere
filler, the sexual motif functions as an organising principle that
connects to a plurality of other semantic concretions: its almost
omnipresent relationship with power, for example, in turn constitutes
almost a cliché, variously articulated, and a social device (cf.
Foucault, 1976); or again, the exploration of personal identity finds
in it an unavoidable stage in the journey of self-discovery and
discovery of the surrounding world (from the Bildungsroman to queer
studies).
These and other thematic threads can be investigated starting from the
reading of works that expose sexuality more or less explicitly as the
core of the narrative, but the analysis of those that instead relegate
its telling to the margins, or conceal it entirely, will be all the
more interesting: consider the cases in which, for the most varied
reasons, the sexual act, although constituting the engine of the plot,
is omitted, as, to give just one example, in Heinrich von Kleist’s Die
Marquise von O..., a sort of modern prototype of this kind of
omission. Papers may then address the narratological analysis of the
forms (perhaps distorted or ambiguous) through which sexual experience
is rendered, probing, where present, its metaliterary resonances.
Finally, one may also reread the critical and theoretical reflection
on literature, which has often referred to eroticism as a hermeneutic
and cognitive mode: in the twentieth century, it was Susan Sontag who
inaugurated an «erotica dell’arte e della letteratura» understood as
«un insieme di funzioni [...] che generano l’energia dello stile
dell’opera artistica solo grazie alla loro dinamica compresenza»,
followed by Barthes’s Plaisir du texte (1973) and by the joint
theoretical-literary and epistemological reflection of Peter Brooks
(cf. Scuderi, 2023).
Performing Arts and Cinema Section: Grammars of Performing
The grammars of sexuality, in the territories of theatre, performance,
and cinema, translate into spaces of action and friction. On stage and
on screen, the syntax of desire is either instituted or radically
deconstructed.
This trajectory has its roots in Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty
(1937), where eroticism, stripped of its psychological dimension,
becomes a metaphysical force and an organic contagion. A Dionysian
impulse runs through the neo-avant-gardes – from the Living Theatre to
Viennese Actionism – electing the body as a territory of liberation
and of breaking taboos.
With Performance Studies, Richard Schechner’s restored behaviour
(1985) shows how social and, therefore, sexual codes are recombined
and reinvented. Performance thus becomes the place in which gender
reveals itself as citation and social construction (Butler, 1990),
while the vulnerable body exposes itself as political territory
(Phelan, 1993). In the contemporary scene, eroticism reaffirms itself
as a generative principle of art (Abramović, 2018) and, in the
feedback loop between performer and spectator (Fischer-Lichte, 2014),
the experiments of Societas Raffaello Sanzio and of Angélica Liddell –
for the latter, consider the First Letter of Saint Paul to the
Corinthians (2015) – put traditional aesthetics into crisis. More
recently, this research has embraced non-conforming bodies and the
critique of heteronormativity (Gallo, 2024), intertwining with
questions of care, intimacy, and consent.
On the cinematic side, sexuality is historically organised through the
gaze. Ever since Kenneth Anger’s avant-garde underground, the screen
has acted as a critical reagent. If feminist theory decodes visual
pleasure, unveiling the asymmetries of the male gaze (Mulvey, 1989),
and defines cinema as a technology of gender that reproduces power
relations (de Lauretis, 1987), every image retains the possibility of
exceeding the logics that structure it. Already in 1975, Chantal
Akerman’s deconstruction of the visual – consider Jeanne Dielman, 23
quai du Commerce, Bruxelles – opened up new politics of
representation, while visual media elaborated counter-narratives for
historically marginalised subjectivities (Dyer, 2002). From the queer
aesthetics of Céline Sciamma and Alain Guiraudie to the fluid
geographies of mediatised sex (Landrini, Maina & Zecca, 2018), cinema
continues to rewrite the boundaries of the visible.
These references are not intended to trace rigid boundaries, but to
offer themselves as a constellation of prompts. We encourage proposals
that move freely across these areas, intersect their suggestions, or
open up new methodological perspectives.
Possible Research Lines
Taking the notion of grammar as an interpretive category capable of
relating linguistic forms, discursive practices, literary
representations, and bodily performativity, the doctoral conference
invites reflection on the following research lines, to be understood
as illustrative and not exhaustive:
 - Mutations, (re)definitions, and contestations of the grammars of
sexuality in different linguistic, literary, and performative
contexts.
 - Linguistic, literary, and performative structures and practices
that construct discourses on sexuality, and how these discourses
interact with other discursive systems (legal, religious, medical,
scientific, or political) in shaping the collective imaginary.
 - Modes and expressive strategies of sexuality in spoken languages
and in sign languages, in light of their respective media.
 - Rhetorical and stylistic strategies that outline the representation
of the body, desire, roles, and sexual identities across different
media, offline and online.
 - Processes of normalisation, censorship or interdiction,
euphemization, resemantization, and innovation affecting the languages
of sexuality in dominant cultures and in subcultures (queer, BDSM,
underground, online communities).
 - Definition and (re)construction of the erotic-affective imaginary
through the study of language, literature, and the performing arts.
 - Relations between languages, power, and subjectivity in the
definition of sexual identities and forms of transgression and/or
subversion of dominant grammars.
 - The role of silence, implicature, omission, proxemics, gaze, and
other non-verbal communicative practices in shaping the grammars of
sexuality across multimodal forms.
 - Languages, practices, and performances of sexuality in digital
spaces governed by profit dynamics and algorithmic logics.
 - Forms of censorship on, in, and through discourses and
representations of sexuality, operating through law and explicit
prohibition, but also through social expectations, moral codes,
educational devices, algorithmic practices, and relational dynamics.
 - Languages of sexual and gender-based violence: how it is spoken,
silenced, normalised, or denounced across dominant cultures and
subcultures, from legal-media vocabulary to movements such as #MeToo,
from institutional silence to resemantization by victims and activist
communities, from literary works to artistic performances as tools of
denunciation and reclamation of the narrative.
Modalities and Timeline for Participation:
The conference welcomes proposals from the fields of linguistics,
literature, and the performing arts, in either Italian or English.
Proposals must be submitted by 30 September 2026 to the email address
grammatichedellasessualita at gmail.com in .docx or PDF format and must
include:
 - name, surname, and any affiliation;
 - title of the paper;
 - abstract of the proposal (max 2000 characters including spaces);
 - bio-bibliographical note (max 500 characters including spaces);
 - section for which the proposal is submitted (Linguistics;
Literature; Performing Arts and Cinema).
The CFP is open to PhD Candidates and to PhD holders who obtained
their degree no more than three years ago.
Selection results will be communicated by 19 October 2026. Information
regarding the location and the final conference program will be
communicated at a later date.
The time allotted for each paper is 20 minutes. Participation in the
conference is free of charge. Travel and accommodation expenses are
the responsibility of participants. The conference will be held on 10
and 11 December 2026 at the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences
and Cultural Industries (DUSIC) of the University of Parma.
Scientific and Organising Committee:
Cassandra Dagani, Davide Dobjani, Giulia Govi Cavani, Giuseppina
Pirozzi, Lorenzo Carlo Tore, Fabio Zarroli.
Selected Bibliography:
Abramović M. (2018), “An Artist’s Life Manifesto”, Walk Through Walls:
A Memoir, Crown Publishing Gruop, New York, pp. 259-266.
Antosa S. & Lino M. (eds., 2018), Sex(t)ualities. Morfologie del corpo
tra visioni e narrazioni, Mimesis, Milano.
Artaud A. (1938), Le théâtre et son double, Gallimard, Paris.
Austin J. L. (1962), How to Do Things with Words, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Barthes R. (1973), Le plaisir du texte, Seuil, Paris.
Bataille G. (1957), L’érotisme, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris.
Butler J. (1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity, Routledge, New York-London.
Campisi E. (2018), Cos’è la gestualità, Carocci, Roma.
Carlson M. (2001), The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine,
University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Catelli N., Iacoli G. & Rinoli P. (eds., 2010), Verba tremula.
Letteratura, erotismo, pornografia, Bononia University Press, Bologna.
Corbin A. (ed., 1993), La violenza sessuale nella storia, Laterza,
Bari.
de Lauretis T. (1987), Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film,
and Fiction, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Dyer R. (2002), The Culture of Queers, Routledge, New York-London.
Fairclough N. (1992), Discourse and Social Change, Polity Press,
Cambridge.
Foucault M. (1976-1984), Histoire de la sexualité, vol. 1-3,
Gallimard, Paris.
Gallo F. (2024), “Modelli non normativi: qualche considerazione sul
nudo maschile nei contesti della performance art in Italia
(1968-1974)”, Whatever, n. 7.1, pp. 151-171.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic, Edward Arnold,
London.
Kendon A. (2004), Gesture. Visible Action as Utterance, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Lakoff G. & Johnson M. (1980), Metaphors We Live By, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago.
Landrini N., Maina G. & Zecca F. (eds., 2018), “Sesso e volentieri.
Storie e forme dell’erotismo nel cinema italiano”, Quaderni del CSCI.
Rivista annuale di cinema italiano, n. 18, Todopoint, Barcellona.
Lino M. & Zenobi L. (eds., 2026), Eros e Thanatos. Eccessi e limiti
del desiderio nella rappresentazione estetica, Mimesis, Milano.
Mazzocut-Mis M. (2002), Voyeurismo tattile. Un’estetica dei valori
tattili e visivi, il Nuovo Melangolo, Genova.
McNeill D. (1992), Hand and Mind, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
Mulley K. (ed., 2014), Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary
Theatre, Routledge, New York-London.
Mulvey L. (1989), Visual and Other Pleasures, Indiana University
Press, Bloomington-Indianapolis.
Phelan P. (1993), Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, Routledge,
New York-London.
Sapir E. & Whorf B. L. (2017) Linguaggio e relatività, a cura di M.
Carassai, E. Crucianelli, Castelvecchi, Roma.
Schechner R. (1985), Between Theater & Anthropology, University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Scuderi A. (2023), “Il piacere di leggere: per un’erotica della
narrazione”, Etica e didattica della letteratura. Le responsabilità
della fictio nella post-truth era, a cura di L. Mendrino, R. Nicolì,
D. Nisi, ESE – Salento University Publishing, Lecce, pp. 108-121.
Sedgwick E. K. (1990), Epistemology of the Closet, University of
California Press, Berkeley.
Simpson P. & Mayr A. (2009), Language and Power: A resource Book for
Students, Routledge, New York-London.
Sissa G. (2003), Eros tiranno. Sessualità e sensualità nel mondo
antico, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
van Dijk T. A. (2008), Discourse and Context, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
Villa C. (ed., 1981), Poesia erotica italiana del Novecento, Newton
Compton, Roma.
Wittig M. (1992), The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Beacon Press,
Boston.



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