Extended Deadline

Conference: March 20, 2026

Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA

Contact email: slb322@lehigh.edu

“Although an illness might trigger dissociation from life,” Rita Charon notes, "it can also distill the life, concentrate all its deepest meanings, heighten its organizing principles, expose its underlying unity.” Health, disease, illness, and medicine, these terms are at once material realities that have defined operational meanings in practice. And yet, they also  have a plurality of cultural meanings and representations that shape perceptions, attitudes, and practices in medical practice caregiving, and public health and policy.  This capacity for figuration and mutability, at once, raises opportunities and potential problems. As such, a humanistic study of health demands attention to differential health outcomes, medical discrimination, patient communication and more broadly the ethical treatment and examinations of health and social justice on national and global scales amidst a rapidly changing world. 

The aim of this graduate conference is to address and probe issues of public health and social justice in literature.  We are seeking contributions of 15 minute presentations which unpack, explore and theorize how intersections of the humanities (literature, health humanities, philosophy, history, gender studies)  intervene in socially embedded systems of care, health, and social justice. We are particularly interested in papers which consider these topics through the lens of social justice which generate critical discussions on current issues. We also welcome interdsiplinary humanistic work that engages with the social and biological sciences in innovative and exciting ways. 

We invite paper proposals from graduate students for topics including but not limited to the following list. These topics and concerns are only a few of the many themes that can be explored in this upcoming conference. We encourage abstracts from graduate students who wish to share and engage in conversations about their work, foster community and collegiality and gain conference experience. 

Literature and Social Justice

• Public, Community, and/or Global Health
• Health disparities and health justice 
• Disability studies 
• Health and the Environment
• History of Medicine
• Medicalization of Society
• Medicine and literature; representations of disease and health in literature and culture (fiction, film, tv, graphic novels, poetry, social media, etc).
• Political, Economic Social Determinants of Health and Medicine
• Metaphors of disease; illness as metaphor
• Intersectional Approaches to health and identity 
• Disease and embodiment
• Disease and its (in)visibility// cultural perceptions of disease
• Doctors as detectives// medical mysteries
• Pandemics, Contagions and Outbreaks
• Health, fitness and beauty standards // body dysmorphia
• Body Horror
• Care ethics
• Biopolitics and governability
• Fictional Futures of Medicine

Please send 250 word abstracts to Sophie Bradley (slb322@lehigh.edu) by  January 15, 2026.