Shielding: Body-based Studies on Integrity and Protection (Corporeal Matters)

Shielding offers a collection of conceptual approaches through which bodies, intentionally or involuntarily, become shields. Bodies take on an ambivalent status in the process: they serve as protection or a buffer and express resistance. At the same time, they turn and are turned into weapons when they intervene on the ground and politically, in war, conflicts, and through activism. The contributors address the idea of bodily integrity, both in a material sense and with regard to the symbolic and ethical relations that a body entangles. The book engages with ongoing debates around the re-evaluation of corporeality and embodiment in contemporary socio-political contexts.

Sandra Noeth is a professor at Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin and an international curator. Her work focuses on ethical and political perspectives in body-based artistic practice and theory.

Sandra Umathum is a performance scholar, writer and dramaturge. Her work focuses on the political, social and ecological dimensions of art.

Janez Jansa is a professor at Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin and a contemporary artist focusing on the relation between art and the social and political context.