Graduate Journal aspeers Calls for Papers on "American Health" by 12 Oct 2014

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aspeers: emerging voices in american studies
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From the health checks on Ellis Island to long-standing and recently increasing debates about the (un-)Americanness of different models of health care to Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign aimed at improving the health of Americans, public discourse in the US has continually connected notions of health to notions of Americanness and has negotiated one via the other. Moreover, a culturally relevant, broad, metaphorical usage of health is evidenced in the omnipresence of such phrases as "the health of the nation," "crime epidemic," and even "Bieber fever." Not surprisingly, the topic of "American Health," broadly conceived, has garnered significant attention among scholars in a variety of disciplines.

aspeers will, therefore, dedicate the topical section of its eighth annual issue to "American Health." The journal seeks to further explore the topic and the manifold scholarly opportunities and interpretative potentials it offers for MA-level American studies in Europe. With a host of disciplines--ranging from political science and history to medicine, legal studies, cultural studies, and beyond--devoting scholarship to this topic, we welcome papers from the various fields, methodologies, and approaches American studies draws upon as well as inter- and transdisciplinary submissions. The following thematic clusters, then, might spark but do not delimit ideas for possible submissions:

  • health, medicine, and capitalism: body optimization, the health risks of poverty, the commodification of reproduction, etc.
  • the normative power of "healthy": fat shaming, the impact of the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the legalization of medical marijuana, etc.
  • negotiations of injury, disease, and health in literature, movies, TV, music, art, etc.
  • the politics and legalities of health: the Hobby Lobby case, social security, biological warfare, etc.
  • health intersecting with other categories of difference like race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, etc.
  • the history of health in the US: female hysteria in the nineteenth century, food safety, the evolution of health institutions, etc.
  • the language of health: metaphors and rhetorics of health and disease in political debates, religious texts, ecological discourses, etc.

aspeers, the first and currently only graduate-level peer-reviewed journal of European American studies, encourages fellow MA students from all fields to reflect on the diverse aspects and implications of health in American culture. We welcome term papers, excerpts from theses, or papers specifically written for the eighth issue of aspeers by 12 October 2014. If you are seeking to publish work beyond this topic, please refer to our general call for papers. At www.aspeers.com/2015 you can find additional information as well as our submission guidelines.