Call for Papers: Alternative Psychiatric Narratives

Proposals for 20 minute papers touching on any aspects of alternative psychiatric narratives are welcomed from postgraduate and early career researchers across the humanities and social sciences for the Alternative Psychiatric Narratives conference taking place on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 May 2014 in Birkbeck College, University of London. The conference will be chaired by Professor Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck. Deadline for submissions is Monday 3 March 2014.

This conference seeks to contribute to the development of alternative narratives of psychiatry (in the broadest sense of the term) by exploring the voices and experiences of those involved in the non-institutional, non-formal aspects of psychiatry, and by investigating new ways to access all aspects of psychiatric experience, from the early modern period to today. This will be a space to discuss wide ranging (alternative) narratives of psychiatry, representations of psychiatry over time, and the methods and meanings behind this work from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

• Alternative methodologies (such as oral history, social geography, ethnography, and more)
• Histories of familial and community care
• Representations of psychiatry in literature, theatre, art, music and the media
• Disability theories and histories in relation to the history of psychiatry and mental health
• Reforms, campaigns, and histories of activism and the psychiatric survivor movement
• Alternative views of traditional psychiatric sites such as asylums, hospitals, clinics
• Developments, experiences and perceptions of auxiliary and support staff
• Questions of space, time, culture and locality
• The gendering of psychiatric spaces, diagnoses and treatments
• Changing therapeutic identities over time
• Race and ethnicity, and other hidden dimensions of psychiatric history
• The classic sick role: its history, consequences and alternatives
• Medical texts and their role in shaping psychiatric stories
• The problems with psychiatric narratives: authenticity and authority, uses and abuses

Those interested in presenting a paper should email a short proposal (max. 300 words) to AltPsychiatricNarratives@gmail.com by Monday 3 March 2014
Subject to funding, we hope that some travel expenses will be available for speakers. Members of the Society for the Social History of Medicine will be able to apply for travel bursaries from the Society; visit www.sshm.org/content/conference-bursaries-students for more details.

Further details and information regarding registration will be at altpsychiatricnarratives.wordpress.com
Hazel Croft, Stephanie Eastoe, Susanna Shapland, Janet Weston Co-convenors, Birkbeck