2013/2014 William S. Vaughn
Visiting Fellowship

"Diagnosis in Context: Culture, Politics, and the Construction of Meaning"

Program co-directors: Vanessa Beasley (Communication Studies) and Arleen Tuchman  (History).

The Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities will host a year-long interdisciplinary faculty seminar to explore the types of work that medical diagnoses perform.  Modern medicine typically defines diagnosis as the act of identifying or naming disease, with disease understood as a pathophysiological condition that produces characteristic symptoms and follows a predictable path.  But such straightforward statements hide more than they reveal. Specifically, they leave unexplored the power of language and labels to create imagined boundaries between and among populations—boundaries that can affect the lived experience of disease and disability as well as the allocation of resources.

Both the act and the understanding of diagnosis invite interdisciplinary discussion about how, where, when and why diagnostic meanings are made. Working at the intersections of culture, literature, medicine, and politics, scholars in the Warren Center Fellows Program will study the production of diagnoses, the various meanings ascribed to them across time and place, and the work they do for individuals and communities trying to navigate the elusive boundaries between health and disease. Seminar participants will represent a wide range of disciplines and will employ multiple methodologies to examine together the various uses, abuses, and meanings of diagnosis.  These methodologies might include cross-cultural comparisons, historical analysis, literary and/or rhetorical criticism, disability studies, public policy studies, and medical and clinical research.

We invite applications from scholars in all disciplines whose lively presence will help to focus our work and stimulate discussions. We anticipate that the successful applicant will have completed the terminal degree in her/his filed at the time of application and will have a record of scholarly publication. The seminar meets weekly and will allow the visiting fellow ample time to pursue a major research project. The combined interests of the visiting fellow and the Vanderbilt faculty fellows will determine the form and content of seminar discussions.

The Visiting Fellow is provided with a spacious office within the Center's own building. The fellowship pays a stipend of up to $50,000 and provides $2,000 in moving expenses. Application materials may be downloaded from our website: vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center. Complete applications must be submitted by January 15, 2013.

 

APPLICATION MATERIALS AVAILABLE HERE

 

For more information please contact:

Mona Frederick, Executive Director, mona.frederick@vanderbilt.edu

Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
VU Station B #351534, Nashville, TN 37235-1534
(615) 343-6060

 

 

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