The "Medical Humanities: Health and Disease in Culture" PCA/ACA area explores health and disease in everyday life and as socially constructed in various mass media in historical and contemporary contexts. Proposal submissions may represent humanities and the arts (e.g., literature, history, film, visual arts) or social science (e.g., anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, print or electronic journalism) perspectives.

Subject areas might include but are not limited to:

health care policy and reform discourse as expressed in film, TV drama comedy, documentary, or reality programming, advertising, news, comics, posters, etc.) e.g., individual and social responsibility for health; the “public option”; “patient-centered” health care, bioethical and health care delivery issues; disability rights; pharmaceutical industry (cost, access, regulation)

narratives in literature and mass media of chronic illness and infectious diseases, epidemics, pandemics (e.g. cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, the 1918 flu, H1N1 flu, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS,smoking)

stories of illness from patient and health practitioner perspectives in novels, short stories, memoirs, graphic comics, etc.

health and disease topics in class, gender, race, and ethnic contexts

representations of health institutions (e.g. HMO's, hospitals, neighborhood drugstores, health clinics, government agencies) and health practitioners in the mass media (e.g. in new TV dramas featuring nurses or TV documentaries on hospitals).

promotion of health through public health campaigns, diet, exercise, personal or domestic hygiene, cosmetic procedures, etc.

technological innovations and their relation to popular audiences (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, robotics, communication technologies and disease surveillance systems).

globalization, public health, and human needs

herbal or folk medicine; complementary and alternative medicine

papers or panels on teaching medical humanities subjects to various audiences.

Contributions from interdisciplinary and single disciplines are welcome.
Individual or full panel proposals are considered.
DEADLINE for proposal submissions: DECEMBER 15, 2009.
Please send abstracts of 250 words to:

Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman
Professor of Political Science and American Studies
School of Arts and Sciences
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences-Boston
179 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Email: jennifer.tebbe@mcphs.edu
Fax: 617-732-2959 or 617-732-2801
Phone: 617-732-2904