Intercontinental Cross-Currents Network; Inês Tadeu, Univ. of Madeira and Julia Nitz, Martin Luther Univ. Halle-Wittenberg (Web) 

Time: 04.-06.12.2025
Venue: Univ. of Madeira, Madeira Island, Portugal
Proposals by: 31.03.2025

Notions of women’s health in the long 19th century were part and parcel of transatlantic societies‘ gender politics. Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that foundational twentieth-century feminist scholars turned to questions of women’s health in their critique of patriarchal power structures. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers such as Caroll Smith-Rosenberg, in their so-called “feminist reconstruction of history,” argued that we should study nineteenth-century health discourse in order to make apparent how the social role of women was constructed. This argument was based on the assumption that changes in social and cultural attitudes are made “evident in the language of health” (7). They believed that models of health and sickness showcased a plurality of notions of womanhood, i.e., they indicated what was considered personal shortcomings in women, what was construed as social problems, appropriate moral behaviour, women’s citizenship roles, etc. Scholars started to dissect health concepts and their cultural environment to see what judgements and expectations ideas of health have conveyed (see Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America; 1986, 6-7). After a two-decade-long interest in issues of women and health, interest ebbed until more recently when the Covid-19 pandemic starkly highlighted the gendered and racialised norms and prejudices tied to notions of health. This global health crisis generated renewed interest in questions of women and health across many disciplines, including medicine, history, social science, cultural and literary studies, as well as queer and gender studies.
This interdisciplinary conference contributes to the conversation by focusing on comparative transatlantic perspectives on women and health in the long nineteenth century. The organisers invite scholars and professionals from diverse fields to explore the intricate relationship between health discourses and concepts of womanhood, as well as the experiences and realities that women encountered, engaged in, resisted, or helped create.
The organisers encourage cross-disciplinary studies and comparative transnational perspectives. Thus, the conference will address a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: Read more and source … (Web)