[ecrea] CfP: Tele(visualising) Health: TV, Public Health, its Enthusiasts and its Publics

CALL FOR PAPERS
ERC Healthy Self as Body Capital & Centre for History in Public Health 
London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine International Conference

Tele(visualising) Health: TV, Public Health, its Enthusiasts and its Publics
27 February- 1 March 2019
Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, Bloomsbury, 
London WC1E 7HU, UK

Televisions began to appear in the homes of large numbers of the public 
in Europe and North America
after World War II. This coincided with a period in which ideas about 
the public’s health, the problems that it faced and the solutions that 
could be offered, were changing. The threat posed by infectious diseases 
was receding, to be replaced by chronic conditions linked to lifestyle 
and individual behaviour.

Public health professionals were enthusiastic about how this new 
technology and mass advertising could reach out to individuals in the 
population with the new message about lifestyle and risk. TV offered a 
way to reach large numbers of people with public health messages; it 
symbolised the post war optimism about new directions in public health.

But it could also act as a contributory factor to those new public 
health problems. Watching TV was part of a shift towards more sedentary 
lifestyles, and also a vehicle through which products that were damaging 
to health, such as alcohol, cigarettes and unhealthy food, could be 
advertised to the public. Population health problems could be worsened 
by TV viewing.

How should we understand the relationship between TV and public health? 
What are the key changes and continuities over time and place? How does 
thinking about the relationship between public health and TV change our 
understanding of both?

In this three-day conference, we seek to explore questions such as:
• How did the enthusiasm develop for TV within public health?
• How were shifts in public health, problems, policies and practices 
represented on TV?
• How was TV used to improve or hinder public health?
• What aspects of public health were represented on TV, and what were not?
• How did the public respond to health messages on TV?
• What were the perceived limitations of TV as a mass medium for public 
health?
• In what way was TV different from other forms of mass media in 
relation to public health?
• How were institutions concerned with the public’s health present – and 
staged – on TV broadcasts?

The conference aims to bring together scholars from different fields 
(such as, but not limited to, history, history of science, history of 
medicine, communication, media and film studies, television studies) 
working on the history of television in Great Britain, France and 
Germany (West and East) (the focus of the ERC BodyCapital project), but 
also other European countries, North and South America, Russia, Asia or 
other countries and areas.

Papers might focus on one national, regional or even local framework. 
Considering the history of
health-related (audio-) visuals as a history of transfer, as entangled 
history or with a comparative
perspective are welcome. The organizers welcome contributions with a 
strong historical impetus
from all social and cultural sciences.

The conference will be held on 27 February-1 March 2019, at Institute of 
Historical Research,
London, with a film screening hosted by the Wellcome Collection.
Please send proposals (a short CV and an abstract or outline of 500 
words) by 15 November 2018
to (tkoenig /at/ unistra.fr) <mailto:(tkoenig /at/ unistra.fr)>

Limited travel grants are available, upon application and in accordance 
to need.
A selection of the conference papers on European topics will be 
published with VIEW (Journal of
European Television History and Culture) in a special issue on 
Television and Public Health. Please
review their publication requirements if you are interested in 
submitting your paper.
http://viewjournal.eu/

The conference is organized by the ERC funded research group 
BodyCapital, and hosted by the Centre for History in Public Health 
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The healthy self as body capital: individuals, market-based societies 
and body politics in visual twentieth century
Europe (BodyCapital) project is directed by Christian Bonah at the 
Université de Strasbourg in collaboration with
Anja Laukötter at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 
Berlin. The project is funded by the European
Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research 
and innovation programme (Advanced
Grant agreement No 694817).

The scientific committee includes:
Christian Bonah (Université de Strasbourg)
Anja Laukötter (Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, Berlin)
Tricia Close-Koenig (Université de Strasbourg)
Angela Saward (Wellcome Collection, London)
Tim Boon (Science Museum, London)
Virginia Berridge (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Alex Mold (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)


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