CALL FOR PAPERS
“NARRATIVE AND MEDICINE: CARING FOR THE FUTURE”

INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

ORGANIZED BY:
PROJECT NARRATIVE & MEDICINE:
(CON)TEXTS AND PRACTICES ACROSS DISCIPLINES
UNIVERSITY OF LISBON CENTRE FOR ENGLISH STUDIES

CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN FOUNDATION
(To be confirmed)
LISBON, MARCH 5-6, 2015


The concept of Narrative Medicine, established by Rita Charon, among others, in the late 1990s, claims that a patient-centred medical practice should include the competence to interpret “stories of illness” in order to better attend to the personal experience of illness (Charon 2006). Drawing on the works of Paul Ricoeur, who argued for the narrative roots of identity, Narrative-Based Medicine recognizes the inter-subjective nature of the therapeutic relationship and affirms the relevance of narrative knowledge for the diagnosis, the therapeutic process, the education of patients and healthcare professionals, and for research (Greenhalgh & Hurwitz, 1998).
Strengthened by the integrative medicine movement that emerged in the 1990s, NBM/Narrative-Based Medicine proposes to complement the prevalent rational and objective paradigm of EBM/Evidence-Based-Medicine, considering that the present techno-scientific developments call for a humanistic reorientation towards an “ethics of relationship” and empathy (Hervé et al., 2001), of generosity and singularity. The role of NBM is recognized today, both for its large critical output (Zaner, Charon, Frank, Hurwitz, Danou), and for the simultaneous development of medical training programmes in North America and in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and more recently Portugal.

In line with the multidisciplinary innovative research developed by the project Narrative & Medicine: (con)texts and practices across disciplines, we launch a Call for papers for an interdisciplinary conference, aiming to provide a forum for healthcare professionals and international and national scholars from the Humanities and Medicine, interested in discussing the future of this subject.


Topics of inquiry include but are not limited to:

- Humanities methodologies for the Medical Sciences
- Social impacts and impact areas of Medical Humanities
- Narrative Medicine and medical education
- Patient care, health care, caregivers and social health conditions
- Vulnerability and clinical relationship
- Illness, medical care and their literary and artistic manifestations
- Narrative and ethics
- Narrative medicine, neuroscience and cultural anthropology
- Narratives and experiences of illness
- Narratives and medical experience
- Narrative and trauma
- The limits of representing illness
- Art and art therapies
- “Affect theory” and Narrative Medicine
- Literature in Narrative Medicine and its implications for Literary Studies

The programme includes plenary sessions with keynote speakers and break-out parallel sessions subject to abstract submission.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Brian Hurwitz
Christian Hervé
João Lobo Antunes
Rita Charon

The proposals will be submitted to the Scientific Committee and must include the following:

- title
- summary (between 200 and 300 words)
- 4 key-words
- author(s) name (s); institutional affiliation; e-mail
bio-bibliographical note (max. 150 words)

Languages:
Portuguese, English, French

Important dates

Conference announcement (CFP): 8 April 2014
Deadline for abstract submissions: 31 July 2014
Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2014
Provisional programme: 15 November 2014
Definitive programme: 6 February 2015

Abstracts must be sent to the following e-mail: narrativmedicin@gmail.com

Registration:

31 October: 100 Euros
31 October to 31 January: 150 Euros
Students (Graduate, Master, PhD): 30 Euros

Organization:

ULICES – University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies

Organizing Committee

Isabel Fernandes
Adelino Cardoso
Alda Correia
Amândio Reis
Cecilia Beecher Martins
Diana Almeida
Manuel Silvério Marques
Marijke Boucherie
Maria de Jesus Cabral
Miguel Ângelo Fernandes
Nuno Proença
Teresa Casal
Zuzanna Sanches
 

Scientific Committee
 
Isabel Fernandes (coord.)
 
Adelino Cardoso
Alda Correia
Antonio Python Cyrino
António Barbosa
António Martins da Silva
Brian Hurwitz
Cecilia Beecher Martins
Christian Hervé
Clara Rocha
Dante Galliano
Diego Gracia
Diana Almeida
Gérard Danou
José Ricardo Ayres
João Flor
João Lobo Antunes
José Lazaro
Manuel Silvério Marques
Maria Amélia Ferreira
Maria Antónia Rebelo Botelho
Marijke Boucherie
Maria de Jesus Cabral
Marie-France Mamzer
Nuno Proença
Paolo Tortonese
Paula Chaves
Rita Charon
Teresa Casal