2020 International Health Humanities Consortium:

*** CONFERENCE POSTPONED ***

March 10, 2020

Yesterday (3/9/2020), Vanderbilt closed its campus until *at least* the end of March due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), https://www.vanderbilt.edu/coronavirus. As many of you know, many US institutions have now restricted or banned travel to conferences. Given these heartbreaking developments, and with the deepest regret, we’ve been forced to cancel the smaller version of the conference, scheduled for end March.  We hope to create a series of Zoom conversations – will work on that asap once the situation here clarifies a bit.

Please contact the hotels directly *if* your reservation is at Embassy Suites or Hilton Garden Inn – they will still honor the conference rate if you do plan to travel to Nashville.

For Scarritt-Bennett, please contact our MHS admin Brittany Zenge, brittany.zenge@Vanderbilt.Edu. Again, hotel information appears at, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/mhs//2019/09/accommodation-information/

Most major airlines are accommodating changes without charge – please contact them directly as well.

Again, we will host a two day HHC symposium next October 7-8, as the issues of politics and health become ever more urgent as we recover from this remarkable series of events and build better futures. Much of this event will be free of charge, and open to the public

The next full HHC conference will be next Spring, at Penn State.

Again – we are so deeply, deeply sorry that we won’t get to host you for what was sure to be a remarkable set of conversations, engagements, and events. However, this decision was made out of a deep concern for the health and well-being of our registrants, staff, students.

With gratitude, and in support – Jonathan Metzl and Manisha Mishra, conference co-chairs

March 4, 2020

It is with deep regret that we write to inform you of the postponement of the 2020 “Politics of Health” Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Our conference leadership team has been monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) constantly. The decision to postpone was based on *the latest scientific data being reported, and **the fact that a very large number of attendees at this meeting are coming from CDC level 3 areas, or from institutions that have now restricted or banned travel to conferences. Nashville’s recent tragic tornado also impacted many of our key vendors.

Regarding specifics:

**All individual registration fees will be returned.  Please email 2020hhc@vanderbilt.edu to begin that process. We urge your understanding and patience as we process these requests.

**Please contact the hotels directly *if* your reservation is at Embassy Suites or Hilton Garden Inn. A number of key staff at these hotels have been impacted by the tornado, so the wait time may be slightly longer than usual – but please know that they are aware of the situation.  For the Scarritt-Bennett Center, we will have details shortly. Again, hotel information appears at, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/mhs//2019/09/accommodation-information/

**Most major airlines are accommodating changes without charge – please contact them directly as well.

**For those with immutable plans or who will already be in Nashville, we hope to host a greatly reduced slate of events, if we are so able – in part because many of the venues/contracts/rooms/materials/etc are already paid for, and also to provide community in these challenging times. At this point and per guidelines, we aim to host *a smaller Keynote Panel on Thursday and *several lectures and discussions on Friday – responding to world health events, led by MHS faculty and students. All formal panels, exhibitions, readings, catering, and the Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery party are postponed. Please stay tuned for announcements – these events will be free of charge and open to all.

**We also plan to host a two day HHC symposium in the Fall, on the Politics of Health (large plenary panels and social events) as a lead-in to the Spring 2021 conference  – a time when information about this pandemic will hopefully become more predictable/known, and as the issues of politics and health become ever more urgent as we recover.  Dates for this event coming very soon (very likely Oct 7/8 MHS) – much of this event will be open to the public.  Unfortunately, we simply will not have the infrastructure to re-host all of the panels on the 2020 program.

**The next full HHC conference will be next Spring, at Penn State.

We recognize that the timing of this decision has significantly inconvenienced many of you. On a personal level – we are so deeply, deeply sorry that we won’t get to host you for what was sure to be a remarkable set of conversations, engagements, and events. However, this decision was made out of a deep concern for the health and well-being of our registrants, staff, students.

With love and in support – Jonathan Metzl and Manisha Mishra, conference co-chairs

2020 International Health Humanities Consortium:

The Politics of Health

March 26-28, 2020
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN

Conference Chair: Jonathan M. Metzl
Contact Information: 2020hhc@vanderbilt.edu

The sixth annual Health Humanities Consortium (HHC) conference will explore the politics of health and healthcare in the context of world events and a vital 2020 election year. Health is a desired state – we all want to be healthy.  But health is increasingly a contested political state as well. Debates about who is deserving of health or healthcare intersect with questions, issues, and themes regarding matters such as race, gender, citizenship, identity, and representation that also lie at the core of the health humanities.

Conference Costs: 

• Full Conference Attendance: $350
• One Day Attendance (Friday or Saturday): $250
• Non-Vanderbilt Student (Full Conference): $100 *must upload a copy of student ID*
• Registrationcosts include breakfast, lunch, snacks, and beverages during conference events

Vanderbilt Students:

• Vanderbilt University students may only attend the conference presentations for free with their VU student IDs. No breakfast, lunch, snacks, nor beverages will be included.

Potential topics that might be addressed include (but not limited to):

• In what ways are health humanities and social sciences “political”? What are the social missions of the humanities and social sciences, and in what ways can they address issues such as health equity, justice, and inclusion?
• In our contested political age, can the humanities and social sciences promote empathy or understanding of contested points of view
• How can representations of health in language/literature, film, art, or media uncover deeper understandings of the complex political meanings of health and illness?
• How does a humanistic or social scientific lens contribute to understandings of issues such as The Affordable Care Act, Medicare for all, Brexit, big data or the rise of identity movements that deny humanity and healthcare to “others”?
• How can an academic lens be applied to present-day hot-button political topics that have profound health implications – such as guns, racism, women’s reproductive health, genetics/personalized medicine, war, vaccines, ableism, addiction, or climate change?
• How do health politics differ by country, region or locale?
• How does focusing on the poetics of politics enable collaboration with disciplines such as public health, political science, sociology, anthropology, or economics?
• What are the social and political responsibilities of practitioners/teachers/students of the humanities and social sciences in the current era?
• Which academic methods best examine and analyze the upcoming 2020 election?
• What desired political futures can we imagine for individual and public health?
• How does social media enable, enhance, or thwart political participation?

About the Health Humanities Consortium:
 The Health Humanities Consortium (HHC) promotes health humanities scholarship, education, and practices through interdisciplinary methods and theories that focus on the intersection of the arts and humanities, health, illness, and healthcare. Our goals are to:

• Promote understanding of the experiences of patients, caregivers, and communities as they are shaped in relation to models of disease, illness, health, and wellness.
• Share practices and scholarship through an annual meeting.
• Educate the public, healthcare professionals, and educators about the history, practice, and study of health humanities.

About Nashville: 
Vanderbilt University‘s hometown of Nashville, TN (BNA airport) is a vibrant, engaging city known proudly as Music City, U.S.A. Along with its musical background, Nashville is a part of growing industries such as healthcare, education, hospitality, entertainment, hipsterism, and technology.

Click here for a list of places to visit in Nashville, TN.

Click here for a list of places to eat in Nashville, TN.

Click here for Vanderbilt visitor parking.

Sponsored by the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, Jean & Alexander Heard Libraries, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, The Curb Center, Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science, Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Sociology, American Studies, Dean Bonnie J. Dow, Dean of Academic Initiative, Vanderbilt School of Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt Divinity School, Stanford Medicine: Medicine & the Muse Center for Biomedical Ethics, Hiram College: Center for Literature and Medicine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, HHIVE, Columbia University Medical Center: Program in Narrative Medicine, Center for Bioethics and Humanities: University of Colorado Center Anschutz Medical Campus, Duke University Health Humanities Lab, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Program for Humanities in Medicine: Yale University School of Medicine, McGovern Center for Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), and University of Utah Health.