CFP: Epidemics and Contagion in Slavic and East European Studies

Deadline: December 18, 2022

The working group “Medical Humanities in Slavic and East European Studies” at Hamilton College, Yale University, and Brown University invites proposals for papers at a symposium hosted by Hamilton College on March 3-4, 2023.

This two-day symposium aims to foster collaboration and intellectual exchange amongst researchers who are currently investigating the representation of epidemics and contagion in Slavic and East European Studies (SEES). We invite participants to discuss how epidemics affected the historical, artistic, and literary landscape of Eastern Europe and Russia and, in turn, how cultural perceptions of epidemics challenged predominant medical narratives and histories of public health. We welcome proposals from a variety of disciplines, including literature, history, ethnography, and medical anthropology. We are especially interested in approaches that consider epidemics within medical geographies, focusing on the asymmetrical power relations between metropolitan and rural areas, Imperial centers, peripheries, and frontiers. 

Keynote Speaker: Alfred Thomas (University of Illinois Chicago), “The Brown Plague and the White Sickness: Politics as Plague in Karel Čapek’s Bila nemoc and Albert Camus’ La peste.”

The conference will be held in person, with the possibility of joining remotely.

To be considered, please submit a title and a short abstract (up to 250 words) to epidemicSEES@gmail.com by December 18th, 2022. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of December. Please direct any inquiries to the organizers Giulia Dossi, Natalia Vygovskaia, and Valeriia Mutc at epidemicSEES@gmail.com

CFP: 11th Annual International Graduate Student Workshop

Deadline: November 30, 2019

MEDICINE, MADNESS, AND MALADIES OF THE MIND IN ARMENIAN STUDIES PAST AND PRESENT 

In recent years, the history of medicine, mental illness, and the literary, anthropological, and sociological studies of madness have gained a remarkable momentum internationally. Still, there have been virtually no substantial studies of a premodern and modern understanding of medicine, madness, and maladies of the mind in Armenia and its Diaspora. This interdisciplinary workshop aims to interrogate the stories of both medical and psychiatric sciences as well as that of the concept of madness in Armenian political, historical, literary, and cultural discussions in the past and present.

The Armenian Studies Program invites early-career scholars (graduate students or those who defended their dissertations in the last three years) who critically employ concepts of madness and mental illnesses in their work on Armenian history, society, and culture. The aim is to bring together a group of scholars from a broad range of disciplines. These include but are not limited to history, science, medicine and technology studies, psychology, anthropology, literature, political science, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, art history, film studies, and cultural studies.