CfP: Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate Publics
Type: Call for Papers
Date: November 30, 2016
Subject Fields: Anthropology,
Communication, Health and Health Care, History of Science, Medicine,
and Technology, Women's & Gender History / Studies
Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience
Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate Publics
Edited by Tamara Kneese and Beza Merid
We
invite submissions to a peer-reviewed, themed section of Catalyst on
the topic of “Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate
Publics.”
Illness, injury, dying, and death have been recent
sites of scholarly investigation in fields like feminist critical
theory, STS, and medical anthropology (Braidotti 2013, Fassin 2007, Jain
2006, Mialet 2012, Serlin 2010). Through the production and circulation
of personal narratives about experiences with pain and loss, new
publics are created while networked subjectivities are negotiated.
Complex publics and subjectivities form through encounters between
patients and caregivers, among networks of mourners, and through
subjects who trade paradigms for “how best to live on, considering”
(Berlant 2011). Those who are sick or dying may describe their
affective, embodied, psychological, and existential conditions over
social media platforms, through illness blogs or comedy performances,
over Kickstarter campaigns seeking money to help with medical costs,
during in-person support group meetings, or in emails sent to update
established social networks. Caregivers may give voice to their own
experiences through similar outlets, producing and circulating knowledge
about their position as care workers who, facing burnout or illness,
need care themselves. Face-to-face interactions, privately sent emails,
posts on semi-public Facebook walls, and the public comment sections of
personal illness blogs all participate in the production of both
subjects and publics.
Given the complex, relational aspects of
illness, injury, dying, and death, submissions might take inspiration
from a range of voices, including those in feminist work on affect and
embodied care. Possible themes of accepted papers might include:
-The relationship between social media platforms and care work
-Digital media where experiences of and knowledge production about illness are shared
-Imaginings of the self in relation to illness, injury, or mortality
-Networks formed, reinforced, or maintained through sickness, dying, and death
-New taxonomies of kinship induced by networked publics and experiences of illness
-Articulations of and negotiations with biomedical risk
-The affects/effects of health and illness
-The conceptualization of health as a personal, moral, and civic responsibility
-Performances and narratives surrounding illness, death, and enduring
-The temporal experiences of illness, dying, and care
-Institutional, infrastructural, and personal life spans
Titles and abstracts for submissions must be received by November 30, 2016. Please send abstracts to illnessnarrativescfp@gmail.com.
Selected authors will then be asked to submit draft articles to
Catalyst through the online submission portal by March 15, 2017.
Selected submissions will be published pending peer review.
Contact Info:
Beza Merid and Tamara Kneese, Co-Editors
Contact Email: