Living Questions: Theory, Practice, and Activism in a Time of Reckoning.
Abstracts are due by 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on Friday, January 2, 2025: https://forms.gle/c3QxZ7hSWY5frS7c7
The National Conference for Physician-Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SHSSM) is a biennial conference that explores the intersections of medicine and the social sciences and humanities. Every two years, trainees, scholars, and clinicians bring their expertise in anthropology, economics, epidemiology, ethics, health policy, history, sociology, literature, and other fields to advance analyses and practices of medicine.
The theme for the 11th biennial meeting, hosted jointly by the University of California, San Francisco; the University of California, Davis; and the University of California, Berkeley, is “Living Questions: Theory, Practice, and Activism in a Time of Reckoning.” In these times of rising domestic fascism, inhospitable environmental changes, and genocide – and vigorous fights against them – it seems as though there is no good or evil the term “human” cannot contain. What are our questions for this time? And what are our answers? Our particular and shared positionalities as a community of clinician-scholars orient us to our patients and archives, our field sites and discourses, as living questions, and maybe – at our best – to something like an ever-unfolding answer.
We welcome papers, posters, panels, and workshops that examine the living questions that our patients, clinical care, and scholarship face at the intersection of medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities. Themes include but are not limited to: migration and borders, environmental (in)justice, race and racism, structural violence, clinical systems, gender inequity, LGBTQIA+ care, impoverishment, and their multi-valent intersections with medicine. We are accepting abstracts from across the social sciences and humanities, as well as from activists, that further the theorization and practice of medicine and activism towards addressing these questions and their lives.
A paper/oral presentation consists of a fifteen-minute oral presentation (generally given by 1-2 people) that may or may not be accompanied by a slideshow. It is typically a presentation of original research, but we also welcome talks about more applied projects, such as interventions in medical education, activism and organizing, or other relevant domains.
Abstracts not accepted for an oral presentation may be considered for a poster presentation.
A poster should be 48x36” and should present an original piece of research or an intervention. Posters describing group projects are acceptable as long as the presenter’s role in the research is clearly articulated.
Panel presentations consist of multiple speakers [3+] presenting on a shared topic for 45-60 minutes, and are often panel discussions with a Q&A, although we are open to other configurations.
Workshops are led by one or multiple people, and are interactive trainings for participants lasting 45-60 minutes. Workshops are well-suited for activists, but others are welcome to propose them.
Abstracts are due by 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on Friday, January 2, 2025.
If you have questions about which type of presentation your work fits best in, please reach out to us at info@shssm.net. If your project does not fit within these constraints, please describe your presentation modality in your abstract, and let us know what the technical requirements for presenting it would entail.
Thank you for contributing your work; we look forward to engaging with your ideas!