Call for Chapter Proposals for an Edited Collection
Project Title:
Woman, Patient, Advocate: 21st Century Women’s Health Rhetorics
Editors:
Jamie White-Farnham, University of Wisconsin-Superior: jwhitefa@uwsuper.edu
Bryna Siegel Finer, Indiana University of Pennsylvania: brynasf@iup.edu
Cathryn Molloy, Jamie Madison University, molloycs@jmu.edu
Overview
Women’s health concerns are at the center of national debate. To influence matters of research, funding,
policy, and access to health care, women participate in this debate through a range of rhetorical means.
Grass-roots protests, the creation of digital communities around a shared illness, and open letters such as
Angelina Jolie’s announcement of her prophylactic mastectomy each exemplify efforts in health activism,
or “how the discourses of health and bodily well-being [circulate] among different social movement
sectors and [create] grounds for coalition and conflict (Loyd, Health Rights are Civil Rights, 2014).
Broadly speaking, health activism is motivated by a host of personal, practical, and political exigencies.
Recent studies in the rhetoric of health and medicine concerning women’s health account for some of the
discursive approaches women take to gain access to or influence the power structures that surround
health, wellness, illness, safety, medical testing, diagnosis, prognosis, hospitalization, and treatments,
including, for example, Kim Hensley Owen’s Writing Childbirth and Tasha N. Dubriwny’s The
Vulnerable Empowered Woman.
Meanwhile, elaborate legal, corporate, and activist organizations exist that support, provide, govern,
require, and even limit women’s knowledge, power, and participation generally in their own health and
health care. A constant stream of commentary from politicians, government officials, and mass media
pundits analyze and scrutinize women and their health choices. These comments often over-simplify the
facts and circumstances of a health choice, focusing their attention on the women as agents, rather than
critiquing the unfair and/or limiting structures in place regarding women’s education, access, and options.
By providing documentation and explication of this range of rhetorical activities, this collection seeks to
share the arguments and strategies at work in the realm of women’s health, health crises, and healthcare.
Therefore, we call for chapter proposals that introduce and/or illustrate sites, people, and practices that
comprise the rhetoric of women’s health activism. Chapters may be based on empirical, archival,
qualitative, and other research methods. We especially value the writing and accounts of research
participants themselves, and welcome proposals from academics, healthcare advocates, practitioners, and
other members of the women’s health community.
Our audience is generally academic, though we expect that students, community members, family
members, and activists will find benefit in the evidence presented in each chapter. We see our audience as
interdisciplinary, spanning fields from medical and allied health sciences, communications, rhetoric and
composition, and various areas of humanities.
Submissions should contribute original research and perspectives to one of the following three sections of
the collection:
1. Rhetoric of the Self: With a focus on individual rhetorical action, this section will include chapters that
report on women’s self-sponsored writing. This could include expressivist writing, writing-to-heal, or
self-sponsored educative practices. Generally, this section is devoted to the creativity of women
responding to the circumstances of their health.
2. Rhetoric of the Patient: This section will include chapters that explain the rhetorical systems in which
patients participate in terms of their health. This may include the legal, corporate, or activist organizations
that support or limit patients. Additionally, this may include representations of women/patients within
particular fields/health care arenas.
3. Rhetoric of the Advocate: With a focus on public writing and rhetoric, this section will include chapters
about the rhetorical movements and arguments made by and on behalf of women in terms of health and
health care. This may include advocacy movements, fundraising efforts, legislative lobbying, or other
interventions into decision-making about women’s health and health care locally and/or nationally.
Submission Details
Please provide a summary/explanation of your proposed chapter while attending to the below questions.
Chapter proposals should be no longer than 1,000 words. Simply send your Word doc or PDF to Jamie
White-Farnham at jwhitefa@uwsuper.edu with the subject heading “Women’s Health Rhetorics Chapter
Proposal.”
a. Name, title, and institution of author. Proposed title of chapter.
b. What people and/or rhetorical activity is the focus of this chapter?
c. What are the (anticipated) results of the research/analysis?
d. What argument will be advanced regarding women’s health activism? Please describe the theoretical
frame in use.
e. In which of the three sections does this chapter fit?
f. What is the current state of the research? (i.e., is it complete?)
g. What is the current state of the manuscript? (i.e., Fully drafted? Not yet begun?) Please note that
dissertation chapters are welcome with revision to suit a wider audience.
Selection will be based on the fit for the book’s sections, on the timeliness of the research/argument, and
on the editors’ interest in maintaining a diversity of research participants, artifacts, theoretical frames, and
types of arguments.
Please note that the editors recognize that gender is constructed and fluid. As such, the use of the word
“woman” is meant to include authors, research participants, and references to transgender, non-binary
identifying, and cisgender women.
Planned Timeline
Chapter proposals due: October 1, 2017
Invitations for inclusion extended: January 1, 2018
Full chapters due to the editors: June 1, 2018
Please feel free to contact any of the three editors with your questions.
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