Social Science Studies of CAM and IM

The "Medical Humanities: Health and Disease in Culture" area for the 2010 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association meeting in St. Louis, Missouri area examines topics related to the portrayal of health and disease in cultural discourse. Proposals representing humanities and the arts (e.g., literature, history, film, visual arts) or social science (e.g., anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, print or electronic journalism) perspectives in historical or contemporary contexts are welcome.

Subject areas might include but are not limited to:

ß health policy subjects in the mass media (film, TV drama comedy, documentary, or reality programming, advertising, news, comics, posters, etc.) e.g., national health care reform proposals, town meetings and health care debate, medical rationing, health care as commodity versus right, “patient-centered” health care, bioethical and health care delivery issues, disability rights, pharmaceuticals (from antibiotics to statins to life style drugs), etc.

ß historical and contemporary narratives of chronic illness and infectious diseases, epidemics, pandemics (e.g. the 1918 flu, H1N1 flu, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, smoking)

ß stories of illness from patient and health practitioner perspectives in novels, short stories, memoirs, graphic comics, etc.

ß representations of health institutions (e.g. HMO's, hospitals, neighborhood drugstores, health clinics, government agencies) and health practitioners in the mass media in historical and contemporary perspectives (e.g. in new TV dramas featuring nurses or TV documentaries on hospitals).

ß historical and contemporary perspectives on the promotion of health through diet, exercise, personal or domestic hygiene, cosmetic procedures, public health campaigns, etc.

ß technological innovations and their relation to popular audiences (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, robotics, communication technologies and disease surveillance systems).

ß globalization and approaches to health care (western biomedical, herbal or folk medicine, complementary and alternative medicine, folk medicine in non-western societies.

ß papers or panels on teaching medical humanities subjects to various audiences. We hope to see one or more teaching panels at the St. Louis conference.

Contributions from interdisciplinary and single disciplines are welcome.
Individual or full panel proposals are considered.
DEADLINE for proposal submissions: DECEMBER 15, 2009.
Please send abstracts of 250 words to:

Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman
Professor of Political Science and American Studies
School of Arts and Sciences
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences-Boston
179 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Email: jennifer.tebbe@mcphs.edu
Fax: 617-732-2959 or 617-732-2801
Phone: 617-732-2904