CfP: HEALTH AND MATERIALITY. Histories of Health, Medicine and Trade across Cultures, 1600-2000
7-9
November, 2018. Venue:
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Keynote Speakers: Prof. Pratik Chakrabarty
(University of Manchester), Prof. David Arnold (University of Warwick)
Scholarly histories of trade, health and
medicine tend to fit into two major narratives. Some see networks of commodity
exchange as drivers for innovation and development, while others focus on the
often-negative impact that new trade networks had on the health of (indigenous)
populations. This research network, generously funded by the Wellcome Trust,
seeks to probe the limits of these narratives by exploring the social,
political and economic lives of medical commodities across time and space.
Transnational history forms the framework, within which these enquiries on the
intersections between medicinal, pharmaceutical and therapeutic commodities and
trade are explored.
This workshop, co-organised by the Global
History and Culture Centre at the University of Warwick and the Centre for
Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, aims to bring together
scholars and students of transnational history, whose work has intersections
with fields such as medicine, trade, knowledge and materiality. We invite
advanced doctoral students and early career researchers working in these areas.
We welcome papers that engage with the ways in which medical/therapeutic objects,
goods and practices as well as technologies of production move and thereby shape
the circuits through which they travel. We seek to conceptualise and
historicise the transnational and global circulation of such goods and the
material cultural practices associated with them. The workshop would be an
ideal opportunity to facilitate conversation between senior scholars and
advanced doctoral students/early career scholars to engage on these themes.
Possible themes for
exploration include the following, but are not limited to these:
1. Therapeutic commodities and health. To what extent is the trade in
therapeutic commodities a driver for health and discourses on health? How can
we map histories of therapeutic commodities to larger social/cultural/eco
histories? What are the limitations of this approach, and what alternative
models can we identify for understanding the histories of therapeutic commodities?
2. Chronologies and
Periodisation. Therapeutic commodities have been traded before and after
the appearance of industrially manufactured pharmaceuticals. How significant is
this transition? What kind of change has industrial modernity wrought on
specific therapeutic/medical practices and regimes?
3. Mapping spaces.
The trade in therapeutic commodities occurred across cultural zones and
continents. Who were its major actors? What kind of associations, networks, and
hierarchies emerged in these interactions? Can we map these historical
transitions?
4. Research and the use
of knowledge. How have networks of power intersected with the circulation
of knowledge? How does power impact the agents and locations caught in this circulation?
How do we move beyond the imperial power-knowledge nexus to rehabilitate the
shifts and loci associated with this traffic? How important are transnational
approaches to frame this topic?
Application
details
Interested doctoral students
and scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract and short academic CV to
healthandmateriality@gmail.com no
later than 20 April 2018. For selected presenters with little/no institutional funding,
small bursaries for travel and accommodation will be available.
For further details: see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/agerritsen/wellcome/jnu