Call for book proposals: Anthropologies of American Medicine

Anthropologies of American Medicine, NYU Press

This book series will feature U.S.-based ethnographic research into the relations between health, culture, power and knowledge. While focused on the U.S., the series will also explore the place of U.S. institutions in the world-wide reach of biomedicine through migration, transnationalism, corporate influence and other global processes. This series fills a critical gap in medical anthropology, one of the most vibrant and well-recognized subfields in the discipline of anthropology.

The series will cover both established and emerging topics in medical anthropology, such as the formation of professional subjectivities in health care, pharmaceuticals and everyday life, and the social context of biomedical technologies. It aims to achieve several important goals:

1. to help bring medical anthropology’s unique perspectives to broader debates about health and health care in the U.S., helping anthropologists gain a voice at the table of policy-making, medical education, and patient and community advocacy movements;
2. to highlight the importance of anthropological research on the body, medicine, health, and health care for understanding social, cultural, and political-economic changes in the United States;
3. to raise the visibility and significance of ethnographic work in the US as a key site in theoretically developed anthropological research.

The majority of books are anticipated to be single- or dual-authored. The overarching argument and “big picture” contribution of the work must be clear. Writing must be both accessible and engaging.  We seek theoretically powerful manuscripts that present rich ethnographic analyses of significant health issues. Works in this series will not only advance anthropological scholarship but will also address at least one additional audience such as patient advocacy organizations; health care planners and policy makers; health care providers (specific groups such as nurses, obstetricians, physical therapists), the organizers and participants in community service work/volunteer health missions; and students entering into health professional fields. The books are anticipated to be of interest to additional readerships outside of anthropology, such as the study of health/health inequality, science and technology studies, and biopolitics.