In regards to this years Midwest Modern Language Association conference theme, Health in/of the Humanities, we invite papers that consider how health materializes in various facets of academia. We’re particularly interested in the discursive modes by which health is defined, represented, and mobilized in and between disciplines. This Science and Fiction panel welcomes papers that interrogate disciplines, exploring how representations change or impact the general notions of health and health outcomes. 

 Consider the following as generative questions: 

How do physicists understand the health of the body? 
How might the ‘disabled’ or ‘infected’ bodies materialize in scientific narratives?
How does narrative materialize without our notions of health protocol, social justice, or therapy practices?
What role do posthuman notions of health play in speculative fiction?
How does the posthuman emphasis on enhancement materialize in/on the body?

All topics are welcome; however, we prefer interdisciplinary projects that seek to nuance the disciplinary ways that we approach health.

Themes might include (but are not limited to) the following: 

1) Cross-disciplinary notions of health in science and humanities

2) Women’s health as site of conflict

3) Augmentative technology’s impact on the body/body’s health

4) Augmentation within/outside particular cultures or communities of practice

5) Completing ethnic or cultural augmentative/health/medical practices

5) Speculative changes to health and its relationship to current/future technology

6) Drug use as augmentation or enhancement of health (or the inverse, effecting degradation)

7) Speculative/virtual witnessing of health in science and/or science fiction.

8) “Health” in/outside the life sciences

9) Deviations between “life” and “health” in discourse

Deadlines: 

Please submit your abstract (250 words) and bio (50 words) to the submission form no later than 01 May 2024: You can find the submission form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdHx9T5b2-rQ8zz1j2xJHXyhtkVtEyx...

Deadline may not be extend. Please feel free to email squires@cmu.edu for inquires and suggestions.