Gender, Subjectivity, and “Everyday Health” in the Post-1945 World
What is the history of “everyday health” in the postwar world, and where might we find it? This conference (University of Essex, 16-18 April 2020) invites participants to explore the history of gender, selfhood, and health from multiple perspectives. It has four main aims: to examine how gender, alongside class, ‘race’, and sexuality, mediated experiences of health and wellbeing; to interrogate the reasons for differences in gendered experiences in different regions of the world; to critically assess the concept of ‘everyday health’; and to develop and share methodologies that allow us to write histories of subjectivity and embodiment from the bottom-up.
We particularly welcome papers that consider:
- What “everyday health” means for different genders and in different contexts;
- Methodological challenges of studying gender, subjectivity, and “everyday health” in this period;
- The intersection of gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and age in individual and collective experiences of health;
- Approaches to transgender health in historical perspective;
- Comparative, transnational, and non-western experiences of health;
- Different disciplinary perspectives on the history of gender, subjectivity, and “everyday health”;
- The politics and practice of engaging with different publics on these themes.
We also welcome papers on case studies related to particular aspects of health, and from other disciplines that take a historical perspective.