PCA/ACA

Health, Humanities, and Popular Culture

Primary tabs

Call for papers: 

Health Humanities and Popular Culture

POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION & AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION

2021 JOINT NATIONAL CONFERENCE

June 2-5, 2021

 

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

 

 

The “Health Humanities and Popular Culture” area for the 2021 Popular and American Culture Association meeting in Boston 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

 

Proposals should be 250-300 words.

 

Submissions will only be accepted through the PCA website.

Individuals must be current, paid members to submit to the conference.

 

 

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

 

 

2021 Conference Dates and Deadlines

13-Aug-20 Submission Page Goes Live
28-Feb-28 Deadline for Proposals
10-Apr-21 Presenter Registration Ends at 11:59 pm: Non-registrants Dropped from Program
11-Apr-21 Non-presenter Registration Continues Through the Conference
15-Apr-21 Preliminary Schedule Available

June 2-5, 2021 

Virtual Conference
 

All presenters must be current, paid members of the PCA and registered for the conference. Non-presenters who attend the full conference must also pay membership fees.  

The last day for all refunds is February 15, 2021. No refund requests will be honored after this date. Membership fees are non-refundable and non-transferable.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Area chairs

Carol-Ann Farkas