"Medicine, Health, and Publics," Association for the Rhetoric of Science & Technology (ARST) Preconference, held in conjunction with the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) Biennial Conference, Philadelphia, May 24-25, 2012.

Health and medicine occupy increasingly prominent places in public discourse with citizen advocates playing significant roles in developing, engaging, and critiquing biomedical texts and practices. But how, exactly, have diverse stakeholders used rhetoric to shape the discourses and practices of health and medicine? This preconference will address the multiple ways that publics and the medical establishment mutually influence one another. Preconference papers should extend theory, criticism, and/or practice related to the rhetoric of medicine and publics by addressing one or more of the following themes: the roles of new media in health advocacy, the place of direct-to-consumer advertisements in public health discourse, the successes and failures of health-related social movements, expert and lay health risk discourses, biomedical stakeholder engagement initiatives, the construction of publics in medical rhetoric, or any another topic that directly speaks to the preconference theme. Papers and presentations reflecting diverse methods spanning conventional and critical-cultural rhetorical analysis, ethnography, interviewing, discourse analysis, and hybrid methods are welcome. The strongest submissions may be invited for revision for publication in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Medical Humanities on "Medicine, Health, and Publics," edited by Lisa Keränen.

http://www.arstonline.org/index.html

Medical Humanities Conference, Western Michigan University, September 29-30, 2011.

Visit: http://www.wmich.edu/medicalhumanities/

Read the CFP here: http://www.wmich.edu/medicalhumanities/files/MedHum_CfA.pdf

Corbyn, Zoe. "Terminal Diagnosis for UCL’s History of Medicine Centre." TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION April 20, 2010.

A renowned centre for the study of the history of medicine at University College London is to close. The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, which employs 29 staff including 12 academics, as well as hosting visiting scholars, will shut within two years, according to a statement from UCL and the Wellcome Trust, the centre’s main funder. It is understood that the two parties could not reach an agreement to renew its funding. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=411309&c=1.

"Narratives of Health and Illness," Nordic Network for Gender, Body, Health, Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, September 16-17, 2010.

We welcome submissions for papers, panels, poster-presentations, workshops and different forms of art-work approaching issues within the overarching theme from a broad range of disciplines and fields of research. Topics can include, but are not limited to: Narratives of Health vs. Narratives of Illness Relations between Narrators and Narratives Narrating Bodies Narrative Coherence and Narrative Disruption Narrative Medicine Scientific Narratives Narratives of Power/Powers of Narrative Narratives of Sex and Gender Narratives and Intersections of Identity Autobiography, Subjectivity and Self-Representation Narrative, Memory and History Expression of Narrative and Narrative Expressivity Narrative Forms and Media One page abstracts are due July 1, 2010. Submit your abstracts to body@gender.uu.se and state clearly the form of your proposed contribution. For further information, contact Lisa Folkmarson Käll, Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University (lisa.kall@gender.uu.se).

"Phenomenology and the Vulnerable Body: the Experience of Illness," Department of Philosophy, University of Hull, May 6-7, 2010.

This workshop brings together an interdisciplinary set of speakers to look at the experience of bodily vulnerability and consider its implications for the understanding of embodiment and selfhood. The resources of phenomenology will be put into conversation with accounts of the lived experiences of those living with illness, pain or other kinds of bodily vulnerability. Contributions will be made from, philosophers, health practitioners, medics and others. Papers:

• Fredrik Svenaeus, "Illness as unhomelike being-in-the world: Heidegger and the phenomenology of medicine"
• Katherine J. Morris, "Living the ambiguity of diagnosis: a case study"
• Matthew Ratcliffe, "Phenomenology of Depression"
• Lisa Folkmarson Käll, "Pain Embodied in Expressive Space"
• Havi Carel, "The Phenomenology of Illness"
• Deborah Padfield, "Bodies in Pain" (including slides of her work)
• Jack Wilson, "Sartre: Illness and the experience of the body"
• Carol Eastwood, "Towards a Phenomenology of Endometriosis"
• Minae Inahara, "The Sound of Pain: Embodied Subjectivity and Onomatopoeic Expressions in Japanese"
• Patricia McGettigan, "Falling: from the perspective of patients"
• Julie Jomeen, "Women's lived experience of their pregnant bodies"
• Michael Gillan Peckitt, "Limping After Leder and House"
• Annabel Howe, "'I’ve been playing in the house of ages': Dementia, Advance Decisions and Embodied Experience"
• Lesley Jones & Robin Bunton, "Wounded or Warriors , deafness, technology and the body"
• Diane Pitt, "The Role of Phenomenology in Clinical Diagnostics: the Experience of Women with Heart Disease"
• Anthony Wilde, "Levinas and the Vulnerable Body"
• Stephen Burwood, "Torture"

Visit the conference website here: http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/humanities/philosophy/research/centre-for-research-into-embod/workshops-and-conferences/phenomenology-of-ilness-may.aspx.

Cfp: "Making Sense Of: Health, Illness and Disease," Oriel College, University of Oxford, September 11-13, 2010.

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to explore the processes by which we attempt to create meaning in health, illness and disease. In previous years, this interdisciplinary conference has attracted delegates from around the world, including practising clinicians, academics from a variety of disciplines, and persons involved in community-based organizations. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the world is facing a plethora of health problems, some of which could not have easily been predicted as recently as the last two decades of the last century. Globally, there are critical conditions brought about by war, persecution, mass migration, famine and gross social inequalities. In the 'developed societies', a combination of demographic and life-style factors is putting increasing pressures on health-care facilities that are in danger of fragmentation and under-funding. For its part, the general public is presenting practitioners with a challenging contradiction: on the one hand, people live longer than ever before and are, in some respects, healthier – but, on the other, the burden of chronic disease and 'un-wellness' is increasing, and so is the concern with health-related matters on the part of the 'man and woman in the street'. The wellness/illness profile of to-day's communities renders prevention as important as therapy – which, in turn, implies that prevailing social attitudes have a key role in the dynamics of health, illness and health care as an inter-related system.

The 2010 conference is extending a call for papers on any aspect of this complex set of circumstances. Because this is a very broad brief, we particularly welcome papers that address the following themes:
I. Health, Illness and Disease in a Globalised World
* Health, human rights and social justice
* Health, disease and citizenship
* Health and place
* Diasporas and disease
* Health, disease and international medicine
II. Systemic Problems in Health Care
* Managerial vs clinical imperatives
* Professional hierarchies and internal conflicts
* The speed of innovation
* The contested nature of evidence-based medicine
* Patients or clients?
III. Beliefs about Health
* Positive thinking, tranquillity and mindfulness
* Faith in diets (including water), eg vegan, low-carb, natural/organic
* Exercise, breathing
* Belief vs practice
* Fears: allergies, sensitivities, negativethinking, stress, contamination
* Puritanism and health beliefs
* 'Healthism' as the new religion
IV. Attitudes to Medicine/Healing
* Medicine as science
* Alternative/non-western approaches: evidence or ideology?
* Mistrust in 'the system' ('medicine/science cannot explain everything')
* Mistrust in the practitioners (lack of knowledge/competence/professionalism)
* Risk and trust in the medical encounter (including hospital stays)
* Litigation in the context of health care; the underlying complexities
V. Purveyors of information
* The media and the popularity of medical programs
* Personal networks
* Dr C. O. M. Puter – the role of the Internet
* Reflexivity in the system – how does public information feed back into health care?

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 26th March 2010. If your paper is accepted for presentation at the conference, an 8 page draft paper should be submitted by Friday 13th August 2010. 300 word abstracts should be submitted to both Organising Chairs with the subject line HID9.  Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract.  Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer all paper proposals submitted. If you do  not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

• Maria Vaccarella, Marie Curie Research Fellow, King’s College, London, E-mail: maria.vaccarella@inter-disciplinary.net;
• Dr Rob Fisher, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Priory House, Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire, OX29 8HR, United Kingdom, E-mail: hid9@inter-disciplinary.net.

Cfp: "Concepts of Health and Illness," University of the West of England, September 1-3, 2010.

Keynote Speakers:

• KWM Fulford (Warwick, UK), "Delusion and Spiritual Experience: Facts, Values and Concepts of Disorder in Mental Health"
• Lennart Nordenfelt (Linköping, Sweden), tba
• Fredrik Svenaeus (Södertörns högskola, Sweden), "What is phenomenology of medicine? Embodiment, illness and being-in-the-world"

Over the past three decades, various accounts of health, illness and disease have been proposed by researchers from history, sociology, law, philosophy, public health and economics. Often, however, proponents of various accounts have been isolated within their own discipline with an apparent unawareness of competing accounts. As a result, while there are now a number of different accounts of health, illness and disease available, there is no consensus about which, if any, of these accounts is ultimately acceptable and what implications each account may have.

This three-day international conference will explore differences and overlaps between these different accounts. The conference aims to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines to create dialogue between them, as well as between researchers and healthcare practitioners, on the concepts of health, illness and disease.

We welcome contributions from philosophers, historians and sociologists of medicine on any topic that falls within the broad remit of the conference title. Each paper will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation, followed by a ten-minute discussion. We aim for the conference to be inclusive and to represent a broad range of views and approaches. We particularly welcome contributions from healthcare practitioners. There will be a number of slots reserved for graduate papers and graduate bursaries will be available.

Please send proposals (500 word abstract) via email by Monday 12 April, 2010 to both organisers:

• Dr Havi Carel havi.carel@uwe.ac.uk
• Dr Rachel Cooper r.v.cooper@lancaster.ac.uk

Balls, Paula. "Phenomenology in Nursing Research: Methodology, Interviewing and Transcribing." NURSING TIMES August 13, 2009.

An increasing number of nurse researchers have been drawn to phenomenology; possibly because, like nursing, it considers the whole person and values their experience. Nursing is concerned with understanding people, being perceptive and sympathising with them. It recognises the validity of individuals’ experiences and supports them in exercising control over their own health care (Oiler, 1982). Nurses are taught to respect individuals, listen to them and believe them. They can also relate to the methods used to obtain data. Nurses are taught to be good listeners, to empathise and to create rapport, often in a short period of time. All these are valuable skills in phenomenology and nurses may feel they are sufficient to allow them to conduct a good interview in this type of research. However, phenomenological research is not so straightforward and one must firstly decide which of two main approaches are to be used. These are: Descriptive phenomenology; Interpretative phenomenology. . . . Descriptive phenomenology, which is attributed to Husserl (1963; original work 1913), attempted to make phenomenology a rigorous science within the tradition of its time, and used the concept of bracketing to maintain objectivity. Bracketing involves putting aside what the researcher already knows about the experience being investigated and approaching the data with no preconceptions about the phenomenon (Dowling, 2004; Lopez and Willis, 2004). Subsequently, phenomenologists such as Heidegger (1962) modified and built on Husserl’s theories and developed the interpretative tradition (also known as the hermeneutic tradition). Principally, interpretative phenomenologists believe it is impossible to rid the mind of preconceptions and approach something in a completely blank or neutral way. They believe instead that we use our own experiences to interpret those of others. . . . For nurses conducting research using descriptive phenomenology, one would expect to see some discussion around how they bracket their preconceptions and ensure a neutral approach to the topic. This may even mean not conducting a literature search before carrying out the research to avoid contaminating or influencing the interviews. On the other hand, those conducting interpretative phenomenological research will need to show how their own experiences have shaped the choice of research topic, the questions and their interpretations. They may even write down in an appendix to the work what they expect to uncover. In short, nurses should make sure they read around the different types of phenomenology and use language consistent with the approach chosen. They should not refer to bracketing if using interpretative phenomenology and should not explain how they stand within a hermeneutic circle if using descriptive phenomenology. Read the rest here: http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice-clinical-research/phenomenology-in-nursing-research-methodology-interviewing-and-transcribing/5005138.article.

"The Humanities in Medicine and Medical Education," Annual Symposium, New York Academy of Medicine, October 7-8, 2009.

Considerations of the interface between the humanities and medicine have become both more complex and more urgent in recent decades as advances in science have allowed progressively deeper understanding of disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities. A progressive technologic transformation of clinical practice has followed from these advances. For medical education as well as clinical practice these movements pose important questions around the directions, even the purposes, of medicine, centering on how best to manage responsibilities to the patient as a suffering person and at the same time attend effectively to the disease as a set of disordered biological processes. Continuing progress is occurring not only in the sciences and the derivative technologies, but also in understanding of the illness experience, the physician-patient dynamic and the importance of social environments as determinants of both. The question of what the humanities can bring to these issues is the focus of this conference. Emphases have varied—for some the primary focus has meant bringing the range of traditional humanities disciplines—philosophy, history, literature, the arts, narrative—into medical education, while for others primary attention to medical ethics or the behavioral sciences has been sought. Some of these considerations have been gathered under the rubric of humanism in the United States, or patient-centered medicine in the U.K. This conference will explore the insights, orientations and gifts the humanities hold for medicine as well as their implications for education and clinical care. Visit the conference webpage here: http://www.nyam.org/events/?id=530&click.

"Narrative Medicine and Rare Diseases," Aula Pocchiari Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, June 26, 2009.

This meeting aims to promote among health workers the knowledge of narrative medicine as a functional tool in the management of patients, with particular attention to people with rare diseases. Rare diseases are often severe, chronic, and disabling conditions with a low prevalence in the population. They are difficult to diagnose and often non treatable. Patients and their families may have a perception of intense isolation, alike the sense of powerlessness felt by medical and health professionals who take care of these people. Therefore, it strongly emerges the need to build up a strong relationship between the affected person with a rare disease and the health workers. Narrative medicine aims to fill the gap between the bedside clinical knowledge of physicians (and more in general of health professionals) and the patient's subjective experience and to short that distance, "taking together” both actors in the management of the disease. This tool consists in different contributions from a number of approaches and techniques. The event includes the presentation of different perspectives and methodologies in the field of narrative medicine, through invited lectures, programmed speeches, plenary sessions and a poster session mainly devoted to practical experiences. Further information is available here: http://www.iss.it/.

Cfp: "Knowledge and Pain," Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 24-26, 2010.

Pain, physical or emotional, as a field of knowledge about suffering, is a subject of scholarly attention in the humanities and social sciences, in parallel with the scientific study of pain mechanisms and controls. The conference "Knowledge and Pain" will be devoted to the voices of the sufferers (rather than to those of inflictors, healers, or managers of pain). Bypassing, as much as possible, the messages of professional mediators, it will focus on the light that sufferers themselves shed upon their condition through verbal or visual expression. The organizers of the conference welcome proposals that deal with the following questions: * How does discourse function as an intermediary between sufferer and listeners? Is pain destructive of language or does it merely challenge it? * How and in what contexts does body language communicate suffering in different cultures and inter-culturally? * What social capital (if any) do sufferers gain from communicating their pain? * Is pain exclusively destructive of the subject's world or can it yield cognitive or spiritual gain? * Is it ethically problematic to ascribe meaning to pain beyond its function as a symptom? * What are the relationships between physical and emotional pain? * How are the media used to represent pain, and with what side effects? * Do artistic representations of suffering improve our understanding of the pain of another? * How does the voice of pain implicate the hearer? A selection of papers based on the work of the conference will be published by an academic press. Paper proposals of 300 to 500 words should be sent to msecohen@mscc.huji.ac.il by September 8, 2009.

Cfp: "Healthcare Disparities." DREW UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES 2 (forthcoming).

The Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities (DMH) is looking for submissions for its second edition on the topic of healthcare disparities. Suggested threads include: Health/illness/access to care and social disparities (e.g. urban versus rural communities)Health/illness/access to care and racial/ethnic disparities Heath/illness/access to care and socioeconomic disparities Health/illness/access to care and disparities with regard to other demographic information (e.g.: gender, age, etc.) Healthcare as a right Social justice v. market justice Health care reform that might respond to or rectify the above disparities We welcome discussions on these topics from the standpoints of bioethics, public health, medical anthropology, health policy, medical narrative, and history of medicine. As medical humanities is highly interdisciplinary, we encourage submissions from whatever your field of expertise. We hope this edition of DMH will offer a greater understanding of the issues that we face as a national community in trying to determine what health care justice encompasses. DMH publishes peer-reviewed, original research of an interdisciplinary nature, aimed at breaking down conventional boundaries, bridging the gaps between the humanities, social science, technology, medical education, and public policy, and inviting an honest discussion about the human experience of illness and the need for a more humane approach to health care. DMH, like the field of Medical Humanities as a whole, is committed to infusing medical education and practice with ethical, historical, social, and cultural meaning. DMH engages and informs scholars across all disciplines, health care professionals, health care consumers, medical educators, and policy-makers. Giving a platform to a range of diverse voices, DMH publishes articles that advance the work of Medical Humanities in general as well as articles that focus on special issues or symposia topics. Submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous peer-review and editorial procedure to ensure the academic integrity of all published work. Please send a statement of intent to Managing Editors Elizabeth Fehsenfeld (aefehsenf@drew.edu) and Katie Grogan (akgrogan@drew.edu). Manuscripts should be submitted no later than June 12, 2009 and will be reviewed by members of the editorial advisory board. Manuscripts should be formatted in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, with one inch margins and twelve point font, and should be in the range of 2500 to 3500 words. All copy, including quotations, footnotes, and references should conform to the guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition. Please include a cover sheet with: name, title, address, phone number, email address, affiliation. Submissions can be emailed to the managing editors or mailed to: Editor—Drew University Journal of Medical Humanities Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey 07940-4000, USA.

Cfp: "Taking the Body Seriously," Sixth Annual Conference, UK and Ireland Association for Medical Humanities, University of Durham, July 6-8, 2009.

The conference's aim is to bring humanities resources, both single-discipline and inter-disciplinary, to bear upon our understanding of how our bodies constitute both the possibilities of, and the constraints upon, leading flourishing lives. Key themes include: * the role of the body in framing experience, knowledge, values and the imagination * the place of the body in relation to creativity and the arts, both as generator and as object * how science's methods and agenda reflect the fact and form of our embodiment; and * the place of medical conceptions of the body, health and well-being within prevalent contemporary understandings of human flourishing In addition to these themes, there will also be a general section accommodating papers on topics of broad interest within medical humanities. Abstracts of up to 250 words should be submitted electronically by 24th April 2009 to the organisers at cmh.admin@durham.ac.uk. Further information is here: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/amh/callfopapersannualmeetingdurham2009/.

Cfp: "Knowledge, Ethics and Representations of Medicine and Health: Historical Perspectives," Universities of Durham and Newcastle, July 8-11, 2010.

A meeting of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. The organisers welcome proposals for 20-minute papers under the theme above. We particularly encourage papers addressing questions such as: * What processes have generated knowledge about the body, illness and health that has become authoritative in different societies? * How have claims of medical expertise been justified vis à vis claims from other domains of social and cultural authority such as religion and law? * What did it mean for medical practitioners in different cultural and social contexts to claim to be ethical as well as knowledgeable? * How did they present themselves to the public? * What kind of material, visual and textual representations of body, mind, health and disease have gained 'defining power' exerting influence on medical practice and research until today? Please send your proposal by 1 November 2009 to the NCHM (Email: conference@nchm.ac.uk). Decisions on papers will be made by January 2010. Organising Committee: Philip van der Eijk (Newcastle University), Holger Maehle (Durham University), Cathy McClive (Durham University), Diana Paton (Newcastle University), Thomas Rütten (Newcastle University), Lutz Sauerteig (Durham University) Further information may be found here: http://www.medhumanities.org/2009/03/2010-conference-of-society-for-the-social-history-of-medicine.html.

Cfp: "Translating Bioethics and Humanities," Annual Meeting, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, Washington DC, October 15, 2009.

Medicine relies on myriad translations: discoveries at the laboratory bench translated to the bedside, innovations in clinical care translated to medical practice and practitioners, and complex technological interventions translated for patients and families making medical decisions. Simultaneously, disciplines must learn how to "speak each other's language" in order to make a meaningful impression on clinical care and health policy. These translations bring both opportunities and challenges. Thresholds of translation, liminal spaces, engender power and danger. In translational medicine, for example, the potential for true innovation is balanced with risks of miscommunication and harm. Interdisciplinary discourse has the potential to create bridges and synergy among radically different viewpoints rather than to expand chasms of influence and meaning. We invite scholars to address the issues of translation in the medical humanities and bioethics. Whether translational work involves bringing ethical theory to the bedside, art and literature to the hospital ward, silenced voices to the mainstream, or basic science to clinical care, proposals that move across discursive thresholds of context are welcomed. 2009 Program Planning Committee: Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD MA, Co-Chair, Duke University Medical Center Toby Schonfeld, PhD, Co-Chair, University of Nebraska Medical Center Julie M Aultman, PhD MA, Northeastern Ohio University Inmaculada De Melo-Martin, PhD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University Contact the Program Planning Committee at programcommittee@asbh.org Visit the conference webpage here: http://www.asbh.org/meetings/annual/index.html.