PCA/ACA

Health, Humanities, and Popular Culture

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Call for papers: 

POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION & AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION

2020 JOINT NATIONAL CONFERENCE

 

Philadelphia PA

April 15-18 2020

 

For information on PCA/ACA and the conference, please go to http://pcaaca.org

 

DEADLINE:  November 24, 2019

 

The “Health Humanities and Popular Culture” area for the 2020 Popular and American Culture Association meeting in Philadelphia invites proposals related to the portrayal of health, illness, and health care in the discourses of popular and American culture. Proposals representing perspectives in the humanities and the arts (e.g., film, history, literature, visual arts) are particularly welcome, as is scholarship in culture, media, gender and sexuality. Proposals should clearly establish what connections the presenter intends to draw between their chosen topic and popular and American culture.

 

 Subject areas might include but are not limited to:

  • Narratives of illness told from the perspective of patient and/or provider in contemporary pop culture media: fiction, poetry, graphic fiction, memoir, television, film etc. 
  • Discourses of patient education and/or advocacy—magazines, websites, discussion boards, tv doctors, social media
  • Intersections and missed connections: improving lay and expert communication about illness and wellness
  • Narrative in/about/as medicine
  • The health humanities—what is the discipline? What can it do? How? What’s the connection with popular culture?
  • The problematic representation of illness narrative in popular culture (quests, battles, wins, losses, survivors, victims—and the construction of the patient-as-subject)
  • The construction of medical knowledge and beliefs about illness through the discourses of popular culture: medical melodrama, reality programs, social media, direct-to-consumer advertising, journalism, advertorials, the internet
  • Public health initiatives, patient education, threats, and risk in popular culture
  • The representation of global health issues and the globalization of disease in popular discourses

 

 

Area Chair:

Dr. Carol-Ann Farkas

Professor of English

School of Arts and Sciences

MCPHS University

179 Longwood Avenue

Boston, MA 02115

Email: carol-ann.farkas@mcphs.edu

 

2020 Conference Dates and Deadlines

 

August 1, 2019                Submission Page Goes Live
October 7, 2019               Early Bird Registration Rate Opens
November 24, 2019        Deadline for Paper Proposals and Endowment  Grants
December 13, 2019           Early Bird Registration Rate Ends
January 1, 2020               Regular Registration Rate Ends
January 2, 2020               Late Registration Rate Begins
January 5, 2020               Brigman and Jones Awards Deadline
January 20, 2020             Preliminary Schedule Available

February 1, 2020             Presenter Late Registration Deadline at 11:59pm – participants who have not registered are removed from the program.

February 2, 2020              Non-presenters and retiree non-presenters registration continues
April 15-18, 2020              National Conference


All presenters must be current, paid members of the PCA and fully  registered for the conference.


Refund requests must be submitted in writing. Full or partial refunds will be processed according to the following schedule:
Requested by Jan. 1: 100% refund
Requested by Jan. 15: 75% refund
Requested by Jan. 25: 50% refund
Requested by Feb. 1: 25% refund
After Feb. 1: 0% refund

Membership fees are not refundable.

Area chairs

Carol-Ann Farkas