Thomas Söderqvist The theme of the 2010 meeting of the Society for the Social History of Medicine in Durham and Newcastle, 8-11 July 2010, will be ‘Knowledge, Ethics and Representations of Medicine and Health: Historical Perspectives’. The organisers particularly encourage proposals for 20 min 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?
Otherwise no restriction re. period or geographical region. They also want panel session proposals (with 3 papers). Send 250 word abstracts to conference@nchm.ac.uk before 1 November. For more info, see www.sshm.org.
