[Commlist] CFP: televising the socialist body

ERC The Healthy Self as Body Capital & Centre d'Etudes des mondes Russe 
et d'Europe centrale (EHESS) International Conference

TELEVISING THE SOCIALIST BODY. PROJECTIONS OF HEALTH AND WELFARE ON THE 
SOCIALIST AND POST-SOCIALIST SCREEN
18-20 June 2020, Paris, France

Television prospered upon a tension between education and leisure, which 
was especially acute in a socialist context. Televisions began to appear 
in homes in Eastern Europe after its stabilization as a socialist 
“block” dominated by the USSR. However diverse by nature and history, 
all the socialist regimes shared common strategies of mass propaganda, 
i.e. the intensive use of media to convert people and transform 
collective/individual behaviours. Television was supposed to be a new 
tool allowing direct normative shaping of every citizen, but also blamed 
in some circles for stimulating the disarticulation of the 
class/work/political collective. Moreover, this tool was uneasy to 
master: the professionals trained to produce an efficient TV discourse 
mainly focused on socialist progress (i.e. omitting shortcomings and 
problems from the picture), and the spectators learned to read it (i.e. 
to select the information) at the very same time. Finally, crossed 
communication around programs helped the citizens to identify themselves 
with a Soviet way-of-life more “normal” than in the past 40 years.
The specificity of the Eastern case in the broader history of European 
television and the stakes of “socialist” body values merit both a 
nuanced assessment. The development of television coincided with a 
period in which ideas about the public’s health, the problems public 
health faced and the solutions that could be offered, were changing. The 
threat posed by infectious diseases and famines was receding, to be 
replaced by chronic diseases, which were linked to lifestyle and 
individual behaviour. Early in the 1920s’ Soviet Russia, and then on a 
large scale after World War II, the state turned into a welfare state. 
Lifelong medical care and social security were granted. In exchange 
citizens had to adopt new hygienic habits and healthy conduct: every 
citizen now had the right, and the duty, to be “healthful.” The state 
commissioned the educational institutions and the mass media to purge 
popular unscientific perceptions of medicine and impose an expert 
conception of the body. In Eastern Europe, the political power 
emphasized the necessity of a collective reshaping of the body, defining 
a “socialist” body (still to outline in general and in its national 
variations) that contrasted with its “corrupt” Western counterpart.
Watching TV in the 1950s-1990s 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. In the Eastern part of Europe, where 
food was less scarce, alcohol and cigarettes affordable, the states 
endeavoured simultaneously to promote an ambiguous “socialist” well 
being and fight the usual “social diseases”, encouraged consumption 
while condemning consumerism. Throughout the age of television, health 
and body-related subjects have been presented and diffused into the 
public sphere via a multitude of forms, ranging from short films in 
health education programmes to school television; from professional 
training videos to TV ads; from documentary and reality TV shows to TV 
news; but also as complementary VHS and similar video formats. 
Spectators were invited not only to be TV consuming audiences, but also 
how shows and TV set-ups integrated and sometimes pretended to transform 
the viewer into a participant of the show. TV programmes spread the 
conviction that subjects had the ability to shape their own body.
Bodies and health on television have not been extensively researched, in 
particular in the socialist and transition to market-economy 
contexts.The conference seeks to analyse how television and its evolving 
formats—contemporary, similar and yet differing in national broadcast 
contexts—expressed and staged bodies and health from local, regional, 
national and international perspectives. The conference seeks to better 
understand the role that TV, as a modern visual mass media, has played 
in what may be cast as the transition from a national bio-political 
public health paradigm at the beginning of the twentieth century, to 
alternative societal forms of the late twentieth century when 
(supposedly) “better” and “healthier” lives were increasingly shaped by 
market forces.
We are looking for proposals that will answer such questions as (but not 
limited to):

How should we understand the relationship between TV and public health 
in a socialist and post-socialist context?  Could we identify a common 
trend and transfers between televisions’ treatment of health in 
different socialist countries and contexts? 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? How were shifts in public health, problems, policies and practices 
represented on TV? How were institutions concerned with the public’s 
health presented – and staged – on TV broadcasts? How was TV used to 
improve or hinder public health? What aspects of public health were 
represented on TV, and what were not? In what way was TV different from 
other forms of mass media in relation to public health? How did the 
public respond to health messages on TV? To what extent can the notion 
of “market” be used in the socialist context to define the relationship 
between spectators/patients and television/doctors?

The conference aims to bring together scholars from different fields 
(such as, but not limited to, history, history of science, history of 
medicine, anthropology, sociology, communication, media and film 
studies, television studies) working on the history of television in 
East European countries and USSR/Russia in the post-Stalinist era and 
the years following the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. Papers might 
focus on one national, regional or even local framework, or may be 
comparative in approach. Indeed, considerations of the history of 
health-related (audio-) visuals as a history of transfer, as entangled 
history or with a comparative perspective inside the Socialist Bloc 
and/or with Western counterparts, are welcome. The organizers welcome 
contributions with a strong historical impetus from all social and 
cultural sciences.

The conference will take place in Paris, 18-20 June 2020. The conference 
organizers are able to provide accommodation in Paris during the 
conference, as well as limited travel funding, upon application and in 
accordance to need.

Applications for presentation of approx. 3000 characters as well as a 
short resume are requested by 20 December 2019 by e-mail to: 
(asumpf /at/ unistra.fr)

The applicants will receive an answer by 31 January 2020.



The scientific committee includes

Frances Bernstein (Drew University)
Alain Blum (CERCEC/EHESS, co-organizer in Paris)
Christian Bonah (Université de Strasbourg, BodyCapital)
Kirsten Bönker (Universität Bielefeld)
Heather Gumbert (Virginia Tech)
Aniko Imre (University of Southern California)
Heike Karge (Universität Regensburg)
Anja Laukotter (Max Planck Institute, BodyCapital)
Sarah Phillips (Indiana University)
Katrin Steffen (Universität Hamburg)
Alexandre Sumpf (Université de Strasbourg, BodyCapital)

The organisational committee includes
Alain Blum (CERCEC/EHESS, co-organizer in Paris)
Christian Bonah (Université de Strasbourg, BodyCapital)
Tricia Close-Koenig (Université de Strasbourg, BodyCapital)
Anja Laukotter (Max Planck Institute, BodyCapital)
Alexandre Sumpf (Université de Strasbourg, BodyCapital)


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 
and 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).

Project website: https://bodycapital.unistra.fr
;
Call for papers: 
http://bodycapital.unistra.fr/actualites/actualite/news/cfp-televising-the-socialist-body-projections-of-health-and-welfare-on-the-socialist-and-post-soc/

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------