Medical Humanities Blog

Call for Applications: Tenure-Track Position, Department of English (Medical Narrative)

Good lord; there's been a sighting of that most rare of creatures, a TT position in the medical humanities (well, to be precise, it's a TT English position with a focus on medical narrative.  But still!):

Saint Louis University, a Catholic, Jesuit institution dedicated to student learning, research, health care, and service, invites applications for a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor of English.  Demonstrated teaching excellence and research potential required.  Candidates should demonstrate involvement in English Education, with research interests in medical narrative and fiction from 1700 to the present.  The appointee will serve as the English Faculty Liaison for a long-established advance college credit program (the 1818 Program) which serves regional high schools. The current teaching load is 2/2, with reduction for administrative service. The English Department offers B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. programs, with an undergraduate Medical Humanities Certificate.  The person appointed to  this position will teach undergraduate and graduate courses.  Candidates should have completed the Ph.D. by August, 2011. Start date: August 1, 2011.

Candidates must submit a letter, c.v., and writing sample (15-20 pages)
online at http://www.jobs.slu.edu.  Deadline for applications: November 1,
2010.  Additional materials may be requested at that time.  All applications will be acknowledged by e-mail. Interviews at MLA.  Contact information: Sara van den Berg, Chair, vandens@slu.edu.  Saint Louis University is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer (AA/EOE), and encourages nominations of and applications from women and members of underrepresented groups.

Good luck!

(h/t Lit&Med_ASBH listserv)

Call for Applications: MA Track in Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics

The Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at SUNY Stony Brook is now accepting applications for an eponymous masters track culminating in a Master of Arts in the Biological Sciences (again, note the track).

You can find more details about the program and the faculty here.

Welcome aboard!

Call for Papers (New Journal): Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research

A new journal published by JHU Press has put out its initial Call for Papers.  The journal is entitled Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research.  All three of these descriptors are central to the medical humanities, so this looks to be an exciting and promising journal.  Here are some details on the approach and scope of the journal:

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics (NIB) provides a forum for exploring current issues in bioethics through the publication and analysis of personal stories, qualitative and mixed-methods research articles, and case studies. Articles may address the experiences of patients and research participants, as well as health care workers and researchers. NIB is dedicated to fostering a deeper understanding of bioethical issues by engaging rich descriptions of complex human experiences. While NIB upholds appropriate standards for narrative inquiry and qualitative research, it seeks to publish articles that will appeal to a broad readership of health care providers and researchers, bioethicists, sociologists, policy makers, and others.

Thick content, indeed!

And here are the guidelines for submission.  NIB has planned three symposia to kick things off for Volume 1:

Issue 1, July 2011: Living with Conflicts of Interest in Medicine (Symposium Editor, James DuBois)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Issue 2, September 2011: Nursing Aides in Long-Term Care Facilities (Symposium Editor, Amy Haddad)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Issue 3, December 2011: Experiences of Hospitalized Psychiatric Patients (Symposium Editor, Charles Lidz)

Preference given to story proposals received by October 15.

Sounds terrific, so do consider submitting your work.

(h/t Lit&MED_ASBH listserv)  

Call for Papers: 5th UK & Ireland Postgraduate Bioethics Conference

The 5th UK and Ireland Postgraduate Bioethics Conference:

Social Scientific Approaches to Bioethics: Methods and Methodologies.
The 5th to the 7th of January 2011.
The Wellcome Conference Centre, Euston Road, London.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness and Cesagen.

Also Sponsored by Nuffield Bioethics, Wiley-Blackwell, and the School of Law, QUB.

Guest speakers: Prof Alan Crib (CBAS, KCL); Leigh Turner (University of Minnesota); Dr Alexandra Plows (Bangor) and Dr Duncan Wilson (CHSTM, Manchester)

Post the empirical turn scholars at work in bioethics have been making continually greater use of social scientific approaches. One the one hand this can be seen as a fulfilment of the promise of bioethics as a truly interdisciplinary area of research, on the other we risk becoming as a recent paper has it “Jack of all trades, master of none” (Clinical Ethics 3(4) 2008). This conference seeks to go some way to engaging with this issue through offering four masterclasses on bioethics and an area of social scientific research. These will be focussed on contemporary history; researching publics; sociology; and empirical ethics. Each of these masterclasses will be prefaced by an established academic giving a presentation on the methodological contours of their approach. We seek postgraduate participants for the proposed masterclasses as well as paper presentations which address the conference theme. There are also some limited audience member places. Preference may be given to those which address the conference them and fall within the four areas identified.

There will also be a plenary lecture and some ‘added value’ sessions on academic life. These will include talks by funders, a session by early career researchers and a dedicated networking event, will also form part of the programme.

Please note there are limited presentation slots, places in the masterclasses and conference venue capacity. We will be making our decisions on the basis of addressing the topic at hand, presentation panel and masterclass coherence. There may be some audience only places available once the selction process has been completed.

The conference web site is here.

Call for Papers: Fat Studies and Masculinity

Call for Papers: Fat Studies & Masculinity

As an interdisciplinary field, fat studies has drawn from significant roots of feminist and women’s literature. The socio-historic norms and policing of women’s embodiment and power continue to be important areas study, but the cultural influence upon and experience of men and masculine-identified individuals offers a rich opportunity for investigation and dialogue. This special issue seeks to establish an interdisciplinary academic discussion of fat manhood and masculinities.

Concerns about obesity and health have entered the national and cultural dialogue with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to help stave childhood obesity, reality programs such as Biggest Loser and Dance You’re Ass Off, and the myriad of weight loss organizations marketing their services. The feminization of weight loss typical of recent decades is declining as obesity rates of both genders have increased. Today many weight loss organizations are including spokesmen, such as actors and sports legends, and establishing weight loss online sites explicitly for men. Clearly, the issues of men’s obesity and body are emerging within a cultural dialogue of body, health, and beauty. While men may be less stigmatized for being overweight, in comparison to women, they too are experiencing the cultural pressures and issues of body.

This issue seeks to explore the myriad of topics and issues relevant to masculinity and the fat or obese body. We seek to include cross- and inter-disciplinary articles from a variety of perspectives, including theoretic, empirical, literary and cultural studies.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Social and cultural construction of fat bodies and masculinities: what does it mean to be a fat man?, the degrees of acceptability across culture, subculture, or regionally, global or cross-culturally, the stigmas, stereotypes, and discriminations of the fat subject, fatphobia
• Masculinity and fat: does fat and the taking up of space serve to bolster masculinity? Does fat feminize?
• Spectrum of fathood: what does it mean to be fat, obese, up to super obese?
• Fat masculinities throughout the life course, or during various ages: boyhood, adolescent and teen, adult, elderly
• Media imagery: the portrayal of fat men and boys in television and film, fat men comedians, weight loss commercials and marketing, reality programs
• Fat as freak: the cultural or media construction of obese as subjects of ridicule, observation, critique, and as social others
• Fat and intimacy: the sexual fat body, how do fat men experience dating/romance/sexual expression
• Sexual and gender minority: how do gay or queer men experience fat? Does it differ from heterosexuals? Queer subcultures of bear men? How do transmen experience or use fat in their gender construction?
• Fat and Socio-economic diversity
• Fat and Racial-ethnic diversity
• Fat masculinity in literature and history
• Fat Politics: how if fat treated in social and public policy? Health care systems?
• Ethnographic pieces relevant to above mentioned topics or the intersections of topics

If interest and quality of articles/topics warrants, this project will be expanded from an initial special issue into an edited anthology.

Submission details: Manuscripts and inquiries are to be directed to Daniel Farr, guest editor, at DFarr@randolphcollege.eduor 434-947-8561. Authors may contact the editor in advance of submission with proposals and queries. Email submissions preferred.

Manuscripts should be under 30 double-spaced pages in length, including references. Papers ought use Chicago citation style. Please prepare manuscripts for blind-review with the removal of all self-identifying references. Include an abstract and title at the beginning of the paper. For further details authors may consult the journal website at: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsProdManSub.nav?prodId=Journal200971

Manuscripts should be submitted to Daniel Farr at farr@randolphcollege.eduby February 15, 2011 for full consideration.

Daniel Farr
Randolph College - Sociology
2500 Rivermont Ave.
Lynchburg, VA 24503
(434)947-8561
Email: dfarr@randolphcollege.edu

(h/t H-DISABILITY)

On the Death of Paul Longmore

Historian, disability studies scholar, and disability rights activist Paul Longmore died on 8.9.10.  His death is a great loss to all three areas of activity; he was instrumental in the rise of disability history as a distinctive sub-history, and is the author of numerous erudite and provocative pieces.  I regularly use this one in my teaching, and find his amazing blend of advocacy, truly righteous indignation, and scholarship both amazing and singular.

His death is a loss, but his life and work will and should be honored.

Stephen Drake at Not Dead Yet offers some thoughts here, as does Penny Richards at Disability Studies Blog.

(Raven: H-DISABILITY)

Call for Papers: Why We Eat How We Eat: Food Choices, Nutrition and the Politics of Eating

Why We Eat How We Eat: Food Choices, Nutrition and the Politics of Eating

Conference: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Hosted by the Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths in partnership with SOAS Food Studies Centre

Call for Conference Papers

Never have individual food choices been so much at the forefront of political and policy debates. Recent attention on obesity has been accompanied by campaigns for breastfeeding and the provisioning of healthy food in schools, while industrial agricultural practices and the use of pesticides have been questioned both by policy-makers and consumers. Yet, while nutrition, the politics of eating and modes of body management have been increasingly addressed by the academy, the methodological and theoretical approaches utilised have been wide-ranging and disparate.

The key objective of this conference is to draw together these previously diverse perspectives in order to explore and create exciting interdisciplinary approaches with which to engage with the complex debates surrounding food choices and eating patterns.

We therefore aim to share the findings of those working in a variety of relevant fields, from political economy to medical anthropology, food studies to social policy, and beyond. We anticipate that drawing together these varied paradigms will forge greater understandings of the embodied, social, political and economic factors that shape the ways individuals and social groups eat.

We welcome papers from all academic disciplines and sectors, and from individuals at all stages in their careers. Papers from doctoral candidates and early career researchers are especially welcome. Topics addressed in papers may include:

■Obesity: Politics, Press and Public Imaginings

■Nutrition: From Policies to Practices

■Risk Management Versus Food Pleasure: Taste, Calories and Paradigms of Health

■Food Scarcity, Hunger, Availability and Security

■Networks, Boundaries and Agency in Body / Food Relations

■Belonging and the Constitutions of Personhood

■Domestic Relations and the Politics of Nurturing

■Prestige, Distinction, Emulation and Class Definition

■Food Nationalism and Regionalism

■Economic Practices, Labour, Money and the Market

■Food Safety and Regulation

■Food Prohibitions, Religion and Morality

■From Multinationals to Artisans: Policy, Practices and Perceptions of the Food Industry

■Smallholding, Husbandry and Human / Animal Relations

Please send an abstract, of no more than 300 words, to eatingconference@gold.ac.uk.  The deadline for proposals is Friday 17th September 2010 and we anticipate that speakers will be confirmed by the end of October at the latest. There is no charge for the conference, although we would appreciate if you could register your attendance at the above email address by Friday 17th December.

Call for Papers: Southern Association for the History of Medicine & Science 13th Annual Meeting

2011 Conference - University of Tennessee Health Science Center Library, Memphis, TN, March 4-5, 2011

Call for Papers

The Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS) invites paper proposals for its thirteenth annual meeting on March 4-5, 2011, at the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, sponsored by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Library.

SAHMS welcomes papers on the history of medicine and science, broadly construed to encompass historical, literary, anthropological, philosophical and sociological approaches to health care and science including race, disabilities and gender studies. Participants may propose individual papers or panels of several papers on a particular theme.

Each presenter is limited to 20 minutes, with additional time for questions and discussion. Please do not submit papers that have already been published, presented or scheduled for presentation at another meeting. All participants are responsible for their own travel expenses and must pay registration costs in advance of the meeting. Student travel awards are available each year; for more information, contact SAHMS President Michael Flannery at flannery@uab.edu.

To submit proposals, please visit the online submission site at

http://library.uthsc.edu/sahms.

Required elements for the online proposals include Title, Purpose Statement, Rationale and Significance, Methodology, Sources, Findings & Conclusions, and Three Learning Objectives. For questions or problems with the submission site, contact Richard Nollan (rnollan@uthsc.edu) or Lisa Pruitt (lpruitt@mtsu.edu).

Deadline: September 30, 2010

______________________________________________________

I attended SAHMS 2010 and found it to be a collegial, informative, and rewarding conference.  Please do consider submitting!

(h/t H-Disability)

Call for Papers: Body and the Mind in the History of Medicine and Health (European Association for the History of Medicine & Health)

EAHMH Conference 2010, Utrecht, 1-4 September 2011
Body and the Mind in the History of Medicine and Health

Co-organised by the Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities and by the University Medical Centre Utrecht

Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2010

Confirmed keynote speakers include: Floris Cohen, Jacalyn Duffin and Annemarie Mol

Call for Papers

The EAHMH invites submissions for its bi-annual meeting, to be in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1-4 September 2011.  In the city whose name is closely linked to René Descartes, the Association welcomes abstracts on the general theme 'Body and Mind in the History of Medicine and Health'.  This theme encompasses research in any area where body and mind (and their interaction) were pivotal subjects in the creation of concepts, practices and institutions and in the lived experience of health and disease.  Papers addressing recent debates concerning historiography and/or methodology are especially welcomed.  Papers dealing with the teaching of medical history in a concrete way, as well as incorporating personal experiences, are also invited: it is hoped that a special session may be organised on the teaching of medical history.  Submissions relating to all historical periods and all regions are welcome, as are submissions from non-members.

Abstracts should not exceed one page and should include information concerning the scientific question examined, the sources and approach used and the (preliminary) results.  Abstracts should contain a title and the speaker's contact information (name, affiliation, address and email address).  In addition to single-paper proposals, proposals for sessions including three or four papers are also invited.  All papers in pre-arranged sessions will be judged according to their individual merits.  The Scientific Board of the EAHMH reserves the right to rearrange sessions in the light of proposals received.  Individual paper presentations will be limited to 20 minutes, allowing for 10 minutes of discussion.

Please submit all proposals for papers and sessions to EAHMHconference2011@umutrecht.nlThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it no later than 1 December 2010.

The full call for papers can be downloaded here.

The EAHMH is offering an award of EUR 500 for the best paper presented at the Utrecht conference by a PhD student.

_______________________________________________________________

As if this conference did not sound exciting enough, Utrecht in general and Utrecht University in particular are both incredible places (I speak having just visited both in the last month).  Can you imagine presenting on the history of medicine and health at the same university in which Descartes worked and spoke, frequently, of course, on medical and physiological topics? In addition, the University also features what in my view is one of the finer centers of applied ethics in the Western world.  The mind boggles.  (Yes, I plan to submit a paper!)

Conference Program: The Future of Medical History (UCL)

To mark the closing of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, the Centre is hosting a conference entitled "The Future of Medical History" on 15-17 July at Goodenough College.  I will be in Europe at the time, but will be attended another conference in Germany and will, sadly, be unable to attend.

But the preliminary program and list of speakers is now available on the conference website, and it looks well-worth attending.

(h/t Corporeality Blog)