[Air-L] CFP: Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate Publics

[Tamara Kneese]

Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience

*Call for Papers*

*Edited by Tamara Kneese and Beza Merid*

We invite submissions to a peer-reviewed, themed section of *Catalyst* on
the topic of “Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate Publics.”

Illness, injury, dying, and death have been recent sites of scholarly
investigation in fields like feminist critical theory, STS, and medical
anthropology (Braidotti 2013, Fassin 2007, Jain 2006, Mialet 2012, Serlin
2010). Through the production and circulation of personal narratives about
experiences with pain and loss, new publics are created while networked
subjectivities are negotiated. Complex publics and subjectivities form
through encounters between patients and caregivers, among networks of
mourners, and through subjects who trade paradigms for “how best to live
on, considering” (Berlant 2011). Those who are sick or dying may describe
their affective, embodied, psychological, and existential conditions over
social media platforms, through illness blogs or comedy performances, over
Kickstarter campaigns seeking money to help with medical costs, during
in-person support group meetings, or in emails sent to update established
social networks. Caregivers may give voice to their own experiences through
similar outlets, producing and circulating knowledge about their position
as care workers who, facing burnout or illness, need care themselves.
Face-to-face interactions, privately sent emails, posts on semi-public
Facebook walls, and the public comment sections of personal illness blogs
all participate in the production of both subjects and publics.

Given the complex, relational aspects of illness, injury, dying, and death,
submissions might take inspiration from a range of voices, including those
in feminist work on affect and embodied care. Possible themes of accepted
papers might include:


   - The relationship between social media platforms and care work
   - Digital media where experiences of and knowledge production about
   illness are shared
   - Imaginings of the self in relation to illness, injury, or mortality
   - Networks formed, reinforced, or maintained through sickness, dying,
   and death
   - New taxonomies of kinship induced by networked publics and experiences
   of illness
   - Articulations of and negotiations with biomedical risk
   - The affects/effects of health and illness
   - The conceptualization of health as a personal, moral, and civic
   responsibility
   - Performances and narratives surrounding illness, death, and enduring
   - The temporal experiences of illness, dying, and care
   - Institutional, infrastructural, and personal life spans


Titles and abstracts for submissions must be received by *November 30, 2016*.
Please send abstracts to illnessnarrativescfp at gmail.com. Selected authors
will then be asked to submit draft articles to Catalyst through the online
submission portal by *March 15, 2017*. Selected submissions will be
published pending peer review.

See the announcement online at
http://catalystjournal.org/ojs/index.php/catalyst/announcement/view/4