“Configurations of Friday’s Body” revisits the question of bodies and the physical materiality of characters in order to elucidate one of world literature’s most famous but also most enigmatic figures. Omnipresent in the Robinsonade imaginary, Friday is still to this day most frequently defined not in his own right but in opposition to Robinson: a walking, (and eventually) talking other to the castaway protagonist. By foregoing the typical approach of highlighting the evolving social, cultural and educational relationship between Robinson and Friday in favour of an approach centred around Friday’s physical materiality – his body, his movement, his space – the project will make an important contribution to the continuing project of reading and rereading Defoe’s classic novel. Results are to be published in a special issue of the Nordic Journal of English Studies, an international peer-reviewed open-access journal. Featuring contributions by scholars from around Europe, the special issue will be edited by Patrick Gill and Jakub Lipski.
