Special Session

Theory and Philosophy / Ecocriticism and Science

Yuchen Yan (University of California - San Diego)
y9ya@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Wentao Ma (University of California - San Diego)
w4ma@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Scholars are invited to propose papers for the “Care and Cure: Critical Approaches to Medical Humanities in the Modern World” session. We seek proposals highlighting the subjective and untold experiences of body, health, and illness, exploring academic topics within the fields of: literature, history, science, religion, philosophy, film, art, theater and music. We welcome proposals both related to the conference theme, "Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion," and those not related.

In all medical practices, two goals stand out: to cure and to care. In a vernacular context, care is discursive, relational, and mutual, while cure is linear, utilitarian, and quantifiable. In his book Care and Cure: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Medicine, Jacob Stegenga iterates on two sides of the care-cure conundrum: “when an intervention mitigates harm then it provides some care, and when an intervention mitigates abnormal biological functioning then it goes some way toward cure.”

This panel seeks to foster a discussion that crosses various disciplines on the subjective and untold experiences of the body, health(care), and illness. We hope to use “care and cure” to shed light on the dynamics between health and illnesses and address a series of questions in representations and narratives of illness, the effectiveness of care and therapies, as well as the connection and tension between care and cure as a scientific, ethical, and cultural problem. We invite papers from literature, history, science, anthropology, religion, philosophy, film, art, music, and other related fields that engage with the theme from the 19th century across the world. We are especially interested in lesser-known materials and understudied communities. We welcome proposals both related to the conference theme, "Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion," and those not related.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

· Narrative medicine from all types of media

· Bioethics

· Biopolitics and governmentality

· Mental health and literature, art and media studies

· Limitations of medical or pharmaceutical knowledge

· Medicalization of health/illness

· History and cultures of medicine

· Marginalized bodies in medicinal knowledge (queer, disabled, racialized, female)

· Community/Immunity

· Decoloniality in medical humanities

· Pandemic and contagion

· Aging studies and end-of-life care

· Trauma and memory studies