CFP: Voices of Madness, Voices of Mental Ill-Health (15-16 September 2016)

from Steven Taylor:

Voices of Madness, Voices of Mental ill-health
Centre for Health Histories, University of Huddersfield
15th- 16th Sept 2016

In the thirty years since Roy Porter called on historians to lower their gaze so that they might better understand patient-doctor roles in the past, historians have sought to place the voices of previously, silent, marginalised and disenfranchised individuals at the heart of their analyses.

Contemporaneously, the development of service user groups and patient consultations have become an important feature of the debates and planning related to current approaches to prevention, care and treatment. The aim of this conference is to further explore and reveal how the voices of those living with and treating mental illness have been recorded and expressed.  We hope to consider recent developments in these areas with a view to facilitating an interdisciplinary discourse around historical perspectives of mental health and illness.

The organisers invite proposals for 20 minutes on the themes of voices of madness and mental ill health under headings including but not limited to:

Oral history and testimony

Mental ill-health and community care

Mental ill-health and institutional histories

The role of informal carers

The growth of the mental health professions

Mental ill health and the voice(s) of adolescentsand children

Museums and the ‘heritage’ of mental ill health

The literature (fiction and non-fiction) of mental ill health

Language of madness (if not covered by ‘heritage’)

Dissenting voices

Appropriation of voices

Absent voices

Voices and art

Voices and stigma

The voices of mental ill-health on TV and radio

Individual, activist and social media

For more information contact Dr Rob Ellis (r.ellis@hud.ac.uk), Dr Sarah Kendal (s.kendal@hud.ac.uk) or Dr Steven Taylor (s.taylor@hud.ac.uk). To submit a paper proposal (250 words maximum) or express an interest, please contact Steve Taylor by 14 March 2015.

We hope to offer some bursaries for postgraduate and early career researchers.

CFP: Disability and Deafness in Literature for Young People (Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies special issue)

CFP: Disability and Deafness in Literature for Young People (Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies special issue)

Guest editors: Chloë Hughes and Elizabeth A. Wheeler

This special issue of the JLCDS aims to bring together an international and  multidisciplinary base of readers and writers who explore disability in  literature published for young people.

While disability and deafness have often featured in literature for young people, their most usual role has been as a “narrative prosthesis” supporting the storyline. Disability and Deaf literature for young readers has boomed in the twenty-first century, including bestsellers like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Fault in Our Stars, Wonder, Wonderstruck, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Out of My Mind, as well as a growing collection of texts written in or with Blissymbolics, Braille, Sign Language, or in tactile, textile, interactive, and digital formats. This special issue reconsiders the history and current urgency of disability and deafness in literature for young readers in light of this twenty-first century publishing boom.

Children are often on the front lines of the struggle over the meanings of disability. For young people both with and without disabilities, the works they encounter provide long-lasting frames of reference for understanding bodymind diversity. It is especially important that scholars well versed in disability and Deaf justice, theory, and lived experience critique this canon.

We seek articles on a wide variety of genres, including fantasy, dystopias, science fiction, graphic memoirs and novels, biography, digital forms like blogs and vlogs, “misfit romance,” “sick lit,” and superhero stories. Disabilities that only exist in fictional worlds are fair game. The guest editors are interested in submissions that cross-examine race, class, gender, and sexuality as well as disability and deafness and represent a wide cross-section of international literatures and ethnic groups. We welcome proposals from disability and Deaf studies scholars (especially those who may not have previously written about literature for young people), but also encourage submissions from scholars of other disciplines who might lend their perspectives on using literature for young people with representations of disability to explore bodymind diversity with children and adolescents. We are also interested in intergenerational dialogues, interviews with authors and illustrators who have included protagonists with disabilities or published books for young people in accessible formats, as well as reviews of recently published young adult literature that features protagonists with disabilities. We particularly encourage submissions from scholars with the same disability as the protagonist.

Examples of content foci for this special issue of the JLCDS include, but are not limited to:
• Disabled and Deaf characters challenging normalcy
• Fantastic Freaks and Critical Crips in countercultural texts for young people
• Aesthetic/artistic representations of disability in picturebooks
• Literature for young people by Disabled or Deaf authors and illustrators
• Beyond “narrative prosthesis”
• Children’s and Young Adult Literature in accessible formats
• The role /aesthetics of disability accommodations in texts for young people
• Visibility or invisibility of Disability Rights in literature for young people
• Intersectionality: race, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender identity
• Representations of chronic illness and mental health
• Biographical writing for young people—what is / is not included?
• Critiques of didactic texts for young people on disability
• Interviews of authors/ illustrators
• Reviews of recently published children’s and young adult literature with representations of disability

Timetable:
April 15, 2016: submission of a 500 word proposal for articles or 150 word proposal for reviews and a one-page curriculum vitae to guest editors at hughesc@mail.wou.edu and ewheeler@uoregon.edu.
May 15, 2016: prospective authors notified of proposal status.
November 1, 2016: final versions of selected papers due to editors.
February 1, 2017: finalists selected. Decisions and revisions on submissions sent to authors.
May 1, 2017: final, revised papers due from finalists.

DHA Outstanding Book Award

From the DHA:

The Disability History Association promotes the relevance of disability to
broader historical enquiry and facilitates research, conference travel, and
publication for scholars engaged in any field of disability history.

The Disability History Association is excited to announce its 5th Annual
Outstanding Publication Award. The award alternates between books and
peer-reviewed articles or book chapters.

In 2016 the award committee will accept book submissions. Submissions are
welcome from scholars in all fields who engage in work relating to the
history of disability. Book submissions may have one or multiple authors
and may be a single monograph, or an edited collection, provided the latter
contains new and original scholarship.

Although the award is open to all authors covering all geographic areas and
time periods, the publication must be in English, and must have a
publication date within the two years preceding the submission date (i.e.
1/1/2014 – 5/1/2016). If your book was published in 2014 or 2015, or it
will be published in the first four months of 2016, your book is eligible
for the prize.

The amount of the award is $600.

All submissions should be sent to the award committee care of Michael
Rembis no later than May 1, 2016.

Authors should arrange for five (5) copies of the book to be sent directly
to the award committee at: Michael Rembis, Department of History,
University at Buffalo, 552 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260-4130. Submissions
should also be sent in a format compatible with screen reading software,
such as a .doc file or a text-based .pdf to marembis@buffalo.edu.

In the interest of modeling best practices in the field of disability
studies, we require that the publisher/author provide an electronic copy in
text-based .pdf or .doc file format for the review committee. We understand
that copyright rules apply, and we will only use the electronic copy for
the purposes of the DHA Outstanding Publication Award.  Manuscripts not
provided in accessible electronic formats for screen reading software in a
timely manner will not be considered for the prize.

The Disability History Association board will announce the recipient of the
DHA Outstanding Publication Award in September 2016.