Illness Narratives, Networked Subjects, and Intimate Publics

Through the relational production and circulation of personal narratives about experiences with pain and loss, new publics are created while networked subjects are negotiated. This colloquium addresses the productive capacities of illness, disability, death, and dying, asking how individuals use online platforms or other forms of new technology to both reproduce and contest popular discourses surrounding these everyday phenomena.

Keynote: “Disability, Personhood and the ‘New Normal’ in 21st Century America”

Faye Ginsburg, David B. Kriser Professor of Anthropology, New York University

Rayna Rapp, Professor of Anthropology, New York University

Participants

Tom Boellstorff, Department of Anthropology, UC-Irvine

Whitney Erin Boesel, Department of Sociology, UC-Santa Cruz

Marisa Brandt, Communication and Science Studies, UC-San Diego

Jed Brubaker, Department of Informatics, UC-Irvine

Danya Glabau, Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University

Melissa Gregg, Principal Engineer (INTEL)

Tamara Kneese, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU

Beza Merid, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU

Jonathan Metzl, Sociology and Medicine, Health, and Society, Vanderbilt University

Erica Robles-Anderson, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU

David Serlin, Communication and Science Studies, UC-San Diego