CfP: Routledge Handbook of the History of Modern Medicine: Medicine from/at the Margins - contributor expression of interest
Hello! We (Caitjan Gainty and Grazia De Michele) have been invited to submit a proposal for a Routledge Handbook of the History of Modern Medicine. Our vision is an edited collection that takes a more inclusive view on the history of medicine - one that asks how the history of 19th and 20th century medicine looks from the perspective of those who have stood outside of it. This “outside” can have many different registers - scholars, views, methods, issue, actors and geographical areas that are not often included in the modern medical history canon, but together they will offer readers novel interpretative tools while filling an urgent need for greater representation and inclusivity in both the history and contemporary of healthcare.
Contributions to this work might represent views of medicine from its margins - from the vantage point of "modern" medicine's dispossessed (by disease, by prejudice, by geography), critics, activists, competitors in the marketplace, etc., but it might also reflect the views of who else works in healthcare: the community who labor in hospitals and health systems, or practitioners and practice outside Europe and North America, which tend to dominate the narrative of what this thing we call “modern medicine” looks like. We are also interested in contributions that might reflect on medicine's unintended consequences - errors and medical harms, the medical waste it produces, the impacts of data and the currency of numbers for medical practice. Or in critical takes on areas like genetics, genomics, public health, etc., which help claim for modern medicine so much authority and power. Equally up for grabs might be new articulations about what makes medicine modern, as well as where and for whom that modernity does or doesn’t matter.
Note: though the handbook will be in English, we are in the process of acquiring funds for translation. Please therefore feel free to circulate this onward as widely as possible.
If you're interested in contributing to the Handbook, please email to Caitjan Gainty and Grazia De Michele by 16 June for inclusion in our proposal.