Call for Papers

Deadline for Submissions: Friday 13th December 2019

Public Health, Private Illness is a two-day interdisciplinary medical humanities conference aimed at early career researchers and postgraduate students but open to anyone - patients, practitioners, policy-makers or more established academics are all welcome.

We live in a climate of public health crises. Debates rage over the future of the NHS. Vaccination has become politicised. Concerns are mounting about emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance in an age of globalisation. At the same time, new ways of conceiving of health and illness at an individual level have emerged. Neoliberal policy focuses on individual risk and lifestyle interventions. Social movements like neurodiversity, mad pride or body positivity challenge medical discourses and rework difference as identity rather than pathology.

We want to interrogate the public/private distinction within health, medicine and wellbeing, and to examine the many and complex intersections between public health ideals and the individual experience of health, illness, body and mind. We are particularly interested in debating marginalised and non-traditional perspectives on what can sometimes be a well-trodden debate.

Alongside panels, the conference includes a number of optional and less formal sessions on the conference theme. These include: a zine workshop and a creative writing workshop on Wednesday evening, a poetry and fiction reading event on the Thursday afternoon.

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To register go to the Registration page of our website.

We are open to proposals from a variety of backgrounds and time periods from scholars whose work concerns issues of health, illness, medicine and care. This includes cultural, literary, historical, linguistic, philosophical, theological and political approaches as well as practice-based responses to the theme and humanities work from within medical and veterinary science and practice. All approaches are welcome.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

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• public health campaigns and social health movements, including those which challenge medical discourses

• conceptions of health, fitness and wellbeing

• body, mind, and (inter)subjectivity

• issues of conformism and resistance within medicine

• health inequalities and stigma

• nursing and other modes of care; the role of allied health care professionals

• mental health, madness and psychological disorder

• dying, death, hospice and end-of-life care

Abstracts: We welcome modes of presentation beyond conventional 20-minute papers including readings, performances, displays and posters as well as less formal 10-minute papers as provocations for discussion. Proposals for 20-minute papers or 10-minute provocations should include a 250-word abstract and a 100-word biography with contact information. Proposals for other formats should include a title, brief description and 100-word biography and contact details. Please do not feel constrained by the conventions of your discipline.

All submissions and enquiries should be sent to PHPIGlasgow@gmail.com. The deadline for submission is midnight Friday 13th December 2019.

Cost: This conference is free to attend. In addition, a limited number of travel bursaries are available. If you wish to be considered for a bursary, please include a 100-word justification with your proposal, outlining how you will be travelling to the conference and how attending is relevant to your studies/career.