Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien; Nina Mackert (Univ. of Leipzig) and Jürgen Martschukat (Univ. of Erfurt) (Web)
Time: 03.-05.05.2024
Venue: Erfurt
Proposals by: 31.07.2023
Exploring the history of health means to historicize what people have understood as health, as being healthy, and as living a healthy life. Moreover, questions of health have affected politics and power relations at multiple scales, shaping and reflecting in/equality and difference, citizenship and belonging. The conference seeks to address a broad range of issues revolving around the health of individuals and groups in American history from colonial times to the present.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic has been a powerful reminder of the importance of health in the understanding of societies, and it has spurred a new wave of historical research on health in American history. Whether it is the history of health policy, health care, and insurance; the history of particular diseases and changes in the understanding and treatment of the sick; or the history of working and living conditions and environmental health: Questions of health affect politics and power relations at multiple scales, shaping and reflecting in/equality, citizenship, and belonging, while being themselves permeated by race, gender, sex, class, age, and dis/ability. Health inequalities are deeply woven into American history. What Saidiya Hartman (2007) has termed the “afterlife of slavery” functions as a means of exlusion through health in a double sense: “Skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment“ take their toll on the bodies and lives of Black Americans and people of color, while their health status is used to exclude them from citizenship on the grounds of their alleged inability to be/become healthy. Read more … (Web)
- Keynote: Kathryn Olivarius (Stanford)
Source: HSozuKult