Suffice to say, Colin, we're overdue a good book on the topic!

On some level, perhaps it also gathers some rhetorical force from an extrapolated ideal of discrete functions/purposes all working for common benefit. This is rarely borne out on closer inspection of any specific body (social or biological). But the idea is a powerful one.

But this is a bit of a niche that I'm still trying to think through too. I think, after Esposito, I notice how bodies often imply subordination to 'heads'?

In medieval/Renaissance, lots has been done on body politic/body natural—Kantorowicz alludes to monastic corporations in the preface. Most standard accounts of English corp. law will address monastic origins (see J. H. Baker for example). I found Esposito's Persons and Things usefully provocative.

My jam! The Church as the Body of Christ, i.e. an apparent whole constituted by individual members. This furnishes the legal logic of the corporation—emphasis on corpus—through which monks could own assets communally, rather than individually. Corporations emerge as an equivocation of possession.

As a culture, we collectively overuse medical vocabulary to make our arguments sound more precise and more authoritative—much as a prior age used theological metaphors. However, physicians are the first to acknowledge that many of their terms-of-art are loosely indicative and usefully vague.

Of course, there's probably a very basic piece of psychoanalytic criticism that would've helped me notice this years ago.

This is right up my street. Looking forward to reading this!

Updated conference bio.

Oh no! Absolutely not embarrassing at all! It's by far his least known poem, very few Shakespeare enthusiasts have even heard of it, let alone read it—but turtle doves and mortality brought it to mind. I look forward to reading the essay in either case!

Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.

Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
And the Turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest...

Didn't we all go into academia for fresh flowers, Greek grammar, and resentful murder?

There's aspects of this story that are of entirely legitimate interest: money laundering, rates avoidance, evasion of trading standards. There are systemic issues to tighten up here.

But I wish it made clear that not allowing asylum seekers to work is forcing many into this untaxed shadow economy.

Looks tremendous, Hester! Many congratulations!!