Call for Papers: Health and Illness in Culture
Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures (CSLC),
Taipei Medical University (TMU), Taiwan
TMU Language and Culture Forum 2012: Health and Illness
in Culture
Taipei Medical University, Taiwan
Friday, December 21, 2012
The "TMU Language and Culture Forum 2012: Health and
Illness in Culture"
invites a wide variety of topics related to
representations of health and narratives in culture. Interdisciplinary
proposals representing humanities and the arts (e.g., literature, history,
film, visual arts) or social sciences (e.g., anthropology, cultural studies,
sociology) or medical related fields (e.g., public health, nursing, medicine,
pharmarcy) perspectives through historical or contemporary contexts are
welcome. This one-day conference emphasizes the pursuit of understanding of
health and illness and the exploration of the social and cultural contexts in
which we all live in.
Subject areas might include but are not limited to:
-Stories of illness from patient and health practitioner
perspectives in novels, short stories, memoirs, graphic novels, etc., discussed
in larger sociocultural (ethnicity, race, gender, class), and political (health
care
system) contexts;
-Historical and contemporary narratives of illness in
films; TV comedy, drama, reality programming; advertising; marketing; news
media; web and social media;
-Historical and contemporary representations of stigmas
of illness in popular culture genres; representation and misrepresentation in
health professional education and practice;
-Disability narratives in literature, history, popular
culture;
-Representations of health institutions or health
practitioners in historical and contemporary perspectives;
-Health care reform discourse (e.g., public debate over
national health insurance in electoral politics, disability rights
"patient-centered"
health care, medical homes, health care access, health
disparities, electronic medical records);
-Pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical industry (e.g.,
drug/prescription/OTC use, misuse, popular perceptions, promotion and
marketing; pharmaceuticals and meanings of illness and wellness; drug
development or regulation; clinical trials);
-Historical and contemporary perspectives on public
health "threats";
-Historical and contemporary representations of promotion
of health through such strategies as diet, exercise, personal or domestic
hygiene, positive psychology;
-Historical and contemporary narratives of epidemics,
pandemics, emerging and re-emerging diseases;
-Cultural representations of aging, forgetting, obesity,
smoking, addictions, antibiotic resistance, radiation, cancer, life science,
and general medical issues.
-Reflections on life, bio-life, biopolitics, post genomic
life, posthuman and cloned lives.
Contributions from interdisciplinary and single
disciplines are welcome.?Individual or full panel proposals are considered.
Please email your 250-word proposal and a CV to Chung-jen
Chen at cameralove@tmu.edu.tw by 15
July 2012.
Proposals for complete panels with three related
presentations are also welcome. Please feel free to email with enquiries.
Co-organizers:
Graduate Institute of Humanities in Medicine, TMU College
of Liberal Arts, TMU