CFP: Pictures of Health in the Eighteenth Century

What does it mean to call someone “the picture of health”?

The WHO’s 1949 constitution stated that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” More recently “One Health”—a model of health that includes the social contexts and environmental situation that limits or conduces to both individual and communal healthfulness—has emerged.

How was health imagined, represented, and understood in the eighteenth century, and what might we offer these current debates? Presentations might consider conceptions of humoral balance, or the differently understood requirements for health for laboring people, child-bearing, or the aged. How do “disability” and/or “race” intersect with healthfulness? How do portraits or satirical prints represent healthfulness? How are different geographic locations imagined as conducive to or dangerous to health—or as healthful or unhealthful? Papers drawing upon legal, medical, and scientific literature; literary fiction or poetry; and visual or performing arts from the global eighteenth-century world are welcome. The panel will be in the traditional format of 20 minute presentations.

Please send proposals to Miriam Wallace, Professor of English & Gender Studies, New College of Florida, mwallace@ncf.edu

All presenters must be members of SEASECS to participate in the conference.
For more information about SEASECS and the conference, please go to the conference website, www.seasecs.org.