Medical Humanities Blog

Call for Papers: Social History of Alcohol & Drugs

There's few areas I am more interested in these days than the social history of medicine, so this call looks particularly interesting to me:

The SHAD is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to publishing high-quality original academic research, reflection essays and reviews in the field of alcohol and drug history, broadly construed.

We invite authors from a range of disciplines to submit papers on the wide range of topics within the journal's purview.

General topics include the manufacture, prohibition, consumption and regulation of alcohol, drugs (recreational, pharmaceutical etc), tobacco, coffee, and so on.  The disciplinary focus can be broad, from economic, business, political, social, cultural history, to sociology, anthropology and criminology.  The journal remains a history journal, however, so the main focus of the papers need to be historical.

The editors are also open to suggestion for special thematic issues.  These suggestions should include an idea of whom we could
approach as guest editors.

SHAD is published under the auspices of the Alcohol and Drug History Society (ADHS) twice annually, in the Fall (Issue 1) and in the
Spring (Issue 2) of each year.

To submit a paper, authors should submit either three copies of a printed manuscript by regular mail or one digital version in MS Word or WordPerfect format to the Editor-in-Chief.  Digital copies are preferred, and will usually be evaluated much more quickly than hard copy submissions.  We aspire to have decisions to the authors within one or two months of paper submission.

For more information, please contact Dan Malleck, editor-in-chief of SHAD at the email address listed below, or view the society's
website, at the URL listed below.

Dan Malleck, PhD
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

Editor-in-chief, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal
http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com

(h/t H-SCI-MED-TECH listserv)

On the Blogosphere

Several new or recently formed blogs have come to my attention here, and I just wanted to mention them briefly.

The BMJ journal Medical Humanities has maintained an excellent blog for some time, though I have been remiss in not linking to them until now.

The BMJ journal Journal of Medical Ethics has similarly added a blog (h/t Global Bioethics Blog).

Last, Adam Kolber over at the Neuroethics & Law Blog brings word of the Law & Biosciences Blog (out of Stanford), which touches on many issues relevant to neuroethics & the medical humanities.

All three are recommended.

Call for Papers: Imperialism Under the Microscope: Disease, Medicine, and the (Neo)Colonial Gaze

Call for Papers:

Imperialism Under the Microscope: Disease, Medicine, and the (Neo)Colonial Gaze – an interdisciplinary essay collection

Among the many imports which accompanied early colonizers to the territories they conquered was a range of epidemic diseases, most strikingly smallpox, which decimated native communities that had never been exposed to the disease and therefore had no immunity to it. Yet, despite the direction in which contagions actually flowed, the imperial gaze soon began to fix itself with terror on the native body as the originary source of infection and corruption. This gaze can be traced well beyond the mass decolonizations of the mid-twentieth century, and survives today in the neo-colonial health practices of many western countries with regard to epidemic disease, especially HIV/AIDS, one of the defining fears of our time.

This collection seeks to trace the flows both of contagions and cultural formulations between the West and non-West from the advent of colonialism to the present day. Contributions are invited which explore the links between colonial and neo-colonial discursive formations, literary and artistic representations, medical practices, and macro-scale public health policies, ranging in historical focus from initial colonial contact to contemporary settings. Especially welcome are contributions that consider colonial and neo-colonial approaches to epidemic disease with reference to one or more of the following contexts:

(a) smallpox epidemics in early colonial contact zones;

(b) malaria in colonially administered territories in the age of high imperialism

(c) contemporary First-World responses to HIV/AIDS as a “Third World” disease.

Papers which address the relationships between (neo-) colonial discourses and health practices in a more general or theoretical context are also encouraged.

Contributors are invited to consider especially the role of metaphor in each of these settings, examining the ways in which disease is conceptualized in metaphorical terms, and the way disease itself functions in turn as a socio-cultural metaphor (i.e. a reflection of a malaise) leading to its becoming a powerful ideological signifier. Through a consideration of the ways in which metaphorical and ideological discourses shape actual policy and practice, it is hoped that such constructions will form a central recurring theme uniting disparate interdisciplinary perspectives.

In the first instance, potential contributors should submit an abstract (approx. 500 words) and one-page CV to rkbrock@ucalgary.ca, by October 31st, 2008. Notification of acceptance will be provided after this date. Final papers, due March 31st, 2009, should be between 5000 and 7000 words in length.

New Bulletin of the History of Medicine

The latest issue of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine (82, no. 3), the preeminent journal of the history of medicine, is a treasure trove.

The TOC is here.  The first essay in particular, "From Foetid Air to Filth: The Cultural Transformation of British Epidemiological Thought, ca. 1780–1848," by Michael Brown, is outstanding.   I am partial, as I maintain that the discourse over disease causality in 19th c. conceptions of public health has crucial implications for contemporary public health policy.

Check it out.

On Genius

The MacArthur Foundation has announced the recipients of its so-called "genius grants."  Among the winners is Nancy Siraisi, an historian of medicine who works primarily on medicine and rhetoric in medieval and Renaissance periods.  Given the obvious interest on MH Blog in unpacking the relevance of medieval and Renaissance humanism for thinking about contemporary issues in health and illness, I am well-acquainted with her work; in fact, I will be relying on it in preparing my dissertation.

I particularly like Siriasi's work on what history and rhetoric meant to Renaissance healers, because some of the most important themes of the humanists relate to their own historical consciousness and the use of rhetoric in the service of virtue.

For those interested, here is a Google Scholar search for her publications.  Her work on Vesalius, arguably the most important medical humanist in the last five hundred years, is particularly relevant for students of the medical humanities.

Congratulations to Dr. Siraisi.

(h/t Kathy G.)

Concepts of Disease and Health

Readers of this blog should be interested in a recent entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) on the "concepts of disease and health." It is written by Dominic Murphy, author of a very important book, Psychiatry in the Scientific Image (2006). The latter offers a "qualified defense of the medical model, which says psychiatry is a branch of medicine dedicated to uncovering the neurological basis of disease entities." In other words, for Murphy, psychiatry is best understood as "clinical cognitive neuroscience."

As things stand today, Murphy explains, psychiatry relies on four criteria to validate a diagnosis: natural history (of a syndrome: its characteristic clinical course and outcome); family history (including genetics); differential response to treatment; and laboratory findings. The problem with these criteria, notes Murphy, as emblematically enshrined in the DSM, is a failure to give pride of place to "causal information," apart from the lack of explicit reference to requisite normative considerations (e.g., a model of rationality). We are left, in other words, with the picture of valid syndrome on the order of a "collection of symptoms that cluster together" but without the kind of information essential to a medical (or biological) model of psychiatric disease/disorder. Put differently, "The concepts of clinical phenomenology are notoriously vague, imprecise, unquantified. By limiting the data gathered in diagnosis to the salient and easily identifiable signs and symptoms of clinical phenomenology, the DSM-IV-TR [fourth ed., revised text] scheme ignores a wide range of other data about mental functioning that can be gathered by psychometric techniques and by methods used in cognitive science and neuroscience."

While I'm not fond of Murphy's conception of psychiatry and do not share his philosophy of mind assumptions about the nature of the "mental" or the inherent liabilities of "folk psychology" for that matter, there is much of value in this book whether or not one agrees with the (3) theses (p. 11) he sets out to defend. As in the aforementioned SEP entry, Murphy provides us with excellent conceptual clarification of such terms as "objectivism" and "constructivism" and the projects of "naturalization" and "mechanization" as they apply to psychiatry and psychology. And he makes a devastating critique of the DSM-IV's concept of mental disorder, including the fact that it "permits exclusively behavioral criteria for diagnosis, leading to a failure in many cases to distinguish mental disorders from 'problems in living'--fully comprehensible, indeed wholly expected, reactions to stressful circumstances." Whatever one thinks of Murphy's "medical model" for psychiatry, I think it's hard to quibble with his contention that psychiatry "need[s] both a theory of rationality and a theory of the mechanisms underpinning rational thought and behavior, so that departures from both can be assessed, explained, and treated." Murphy argues that, while there is not a convincing mechanistic model of reason along, say, computational lines, the prospects for a naturalistic rationalization project look better: "But agreement on the naturalistic rationalization project will require equilibrium between folk theory, various sciences, and naturalistic philosophy of mind and epistemology." In a review of the book, Luc Faucher well summarizes Murphy's frank and important conclusion about the implications for a purely scientific model of psychiatry:

"According to Murphy, one can naturalize reason (that is, one can provide a story concerning the possible evolved epistemic function of rationality), but not mechanize it. The consequence of this is that "[t]he assessment and treatment of these disorders [like delusion or alcoholism] usually requires a inexplicit model of what good reasoning is. If rationality is a normative notion, the model must be in part normative. Since this model is normative, it undermines the pretensions of the medical model to purely positive science" (153). However Murphy reminds us that this concession is not an endorsement of the anti-psychiatry's position of people like Szasz, because it applies only to a limited number of mental illnesses, and the norms in question are not social norms, but rather rationality norms."

Patrick S. O'Donnell

On Equity & the SDOH

Stuart Rennie over at the always-fascinating Global Bioethics Blog notes some problems with the recently released Final Report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health:

That there are vast differences globally in infant and maternal mortality or life-expectancy has growing empirical support. And this situation is intuitively unjust. But it is hard to articulate precisely what makes it unjust, and what 'doing justice' might mean. The title of the WHO report would indicate that justice would be served by narrowing the differences, but the nature of this goal is unclear. Raising (say) the life-expectancy of Zimbabweans and lowering that of Swedes and Danes? That seems unfair to the latter. Raising all life-expectancies to that of Japan (82 years)? That would be a more positive way of doing justice, but the idea of doing so 'in a generation' seems wildly optimistic.

Though I'm less dubious than Rennie that it is difficult to articulate a conception of justice that captures the ethical and policy import of the Report, Rennie's point that equity is undertheorized in the Report is more concerning, IMO:

I have only looked over the report briefly so far, but as far as I can see, there is no ethical discussion about the meaning of 'equity' as a goal or ideal (the word 'ethics' or 'bioethics' only appear a couple of times). The concept is used throughout, but not defined or submitted to any serious analysis.

I also am only wading through the Report now, and as important as it is, I agree that the value of equity is seriously undertheorized.  Given that Amartya Sen is one of the commissioners, I am more than a little disappointed at this.  Readers of this blog know full well how important I deem the evidence on SDOH; but positive description of the effects of socioeconomic disparities are insufficient without an extensive normative analysis of how that evidence is to be incorporated into ethical public health policy.  Failure to do so runs the risk of the naturalistic fallacy, which, as I've noted on this blog, is all too common a flaw in discourse on public health policy. 

As Rennie puts it, "if you don't know where you want to go, it is hard to know where your analyses and interventions are supposed to be taking you." 

Call for Papers: History, Memory, and Trauma

Call for Papers: History, Memory, and Trauma - A Special Issue of Traumatology: An International Journal

In recent years trauma studies has emerged as an interdisciplinary field in the humanities and social sciences, drawing together scholars from history, anthropology, literary studies, disability studies, and other disciplines into a rich set of conversations about the nature and meaning of trauma. We have learned a great deal from these efforts, including the fact that the experience of trauma is deeply intertwined with the social and cultural forces through which people
make meaning of the world, the fact that traumatic events cannot be conceptualized as independent of the historical process in which they occur (such as in so-called "natural" disasters), and the fact that memories of traumatic events (at both the individual and collective levels) are deeply intertwined with, but not the same as, historical narratives that document the suffering of the past. However, such conversations are largely distinct from the efforts of professionals who provide services to those who suffer from trauma, as well as the efforts of researchers who study trauma toward the goal of producing scientific knowledge about its treatment and impact. In our view, efforts to bridge these divides are sorely needed.

To this end, Traumatology: An International Journal seeks papers for a special issue on the theme of "History, Memory, and Trauma," to appear in September 2009. Traumatology is a leading, peer-reviewed journal
for professionals who study and treat people exposed to traumatic events, including natural disasters, war, accidents, physical and emotional abuse, hospitalization, sudden job loss, and major illness.  Its readership is composed of both researchers who study trauma and its treatment and health-care providers, social workers, and others who provide services to people who suffer from traumatic experiences.  We seek papers that shed light on the relationship between past,
present, memory, and the experience, treatment, and study of trauma from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including history, literary studies, disability studies, science studies, and anthropology. We also seek papers on this theme from professionals in
the fields of social work, nursing, and other areas who provide services to victims of trauma. Our goal is to provide a vehicle for scholars, treatment professionals, and others to engage with one another about the meaning of the past and its relationship to the experience and treatment of trauma today.

We are especially interested in papers that have significance for the treatment of people suffering from traumatic experiences, but papers that do not have direct relevance to treatment are also welcome.
Literature reviews, critical interventions, and explorations of trauma in the past are also encouraged. Please send short proposals for papers (200-300 words) to joseph.gabriel@med.fsu.edu by October 1.  Papers will be due by December 15 for peer review, with final drafts of papers due in March of 2009. Papers should be written in accessible language and appropriate for general readers. Target length for articles is 6,000-8,000 words, although submissions of different
lengths will be considered.

______________________________

This is a fascinating Call.  I'm fortunate to have some contact with Joe Gabriel, and I have no hesitation recommending virtually anything he's involved in.

(h/t H-SCI-MED-TECH listserv)

Call for Poems: Illness/Disease

Call for Poems

for publication in the

*Journal of Medical Humanities*

Poets are invited to submit up to three poems on the theme of * illness/disease*. Interpretation of the theme (physical, mental, etc*) remains with the poet and may be addressed directly or indirectly.  Poems must be unpublished.  Prompt notification is requested if accepted for publication elsewhere.  Poems should not exceed seventy lines (12 point font, one inch margins), but may be of any form.

Submit via email to sarahcross@alum.swarthmore.edu with the poem(s) attached in one Word document.  Make sure that the document itself includes your name and email address.  Include a brief bio in the body of the email.  Deadline is November 15th.

Selected poets will be notified and asked to write a brief commentary on their poem.  Poems will appear with commentaries and an introduction by the editor in the *Journal of Medical Humanities*.  Non- selected poems may not be acknowledged.

Questions may be directed to Sarah Cross at
sarahcross@alum.swarthmore.edu.

(h/t ASBH_Lit& Med listserv)

And We're Back

Houston is not back to normal, and Galveston sounds even worse, from what I can tell.

My home does have power, though no internet access.  We're back on the air here, though posting may be spotty until internet access is restored.