CfP: Cultural Histories of Air and Illness Conference
Keynote Speakers:
Jennifer Tucker (Wesleyan University)
Richard Hamblyn (Birkbeck, University of London)
Air
has always had an influence on the health of individuals, societies,
cities, and nations. From Hippocrates’s belief that air affected the
human body to Victorian medical theories on tropical climates and bad
air as the source of disease, air was understood to have a direct effect
on health and to be a cause of illness. With the advent of modern
medicine, the role of air’s impact on human health has shifted, but
remains present. For instance, current concerns about air pollution and
respiratory disease, as well as the role climate change is playing on
the health of ecosystems and nations, demonstrate the continued
significance of air’s relationship to health.
The Cultural
Histories of Air and Illness Conference will span disciplines and
periods to explore broadly the link between human health and the air.
How have we thought about, studied, and depicted the connections between
air and illness? In what ways have we represented air as a source or
carrier of visible and invisible dangers? How have humans constructed
their relationship with the environment and what role has the
environment played in the history of human health? How has air pollution
and climate change impacted health across a globalized world?
Topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Medical theories about air and the body across history
- Representations of the relationship between air and health in literature, art, visual culture, film, theatre, and the media
- Cultural constructions of healthy and unhealthy environments
- Air as a vector of disease
- Medical topography, meteorology, and climatology
- Air pollution and industrialization
- Urban planning, gardens, and green lungs
- Radiation and the threat of the invisible
- Climate change and global health
The
conference welcomes proposals of 250 words for twenty-minute papers
suitable for an interdisciplinary audience. The deadline for proposals
is 15 January 2018. Please use the conference organizer’s email address for all correspondence and proposals: a.sciampacone@warwick.ac.uk
For further information, please visit the conference website at: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/arthistory/research/conferences/air/
Conference Organizer: Dr Amanda Sciampacone
This conference is generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre.