Our international conference Between Marginal and Mainstream is held at the University of Helsinki on 11–13 March 2026.
The CfP for this conference has ended. We will publish the conference programme in December 2025.
Submitting a proposal
Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (c. 300) words), a brief biography (up to 200 words) and full contact information. Papers should be 20 minutes in duration. We also invite proposals for full panels of 3-4 papers, with same details and a brief outline of the scope of the panel (150-250 words).
Presentations may address any geographical location but should remain roughly within the time period 1600 to 1900. Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to:
- Methods and concepts of examining experimental healing
- Cultural, social, and epistemological conflicts between traditional and novel healing practices
- Colonial and cross-cultural (especially non-Western) negotiations of healing practices
- Medical knowledge of marginalized communities
- Epistemologies of legitimatization of medical knowledge
- Histories and boundaries of quackery vs. ‘normal’ medicine
- Religious intersections with illness and healing
- Ontologies of medical experimentation
- Folk healing and interdisciplinary interpretations of medical experimentation
- Intersections of categories of gender, race, class, age, ability etc. in questions of health, healing, and medical knowledge
- Negotiations of professional authority, prestige, and reputation in processes of experimental healing
- Spatial and material aspects of healing and experimental medicine
- The role of embodied lay knowledge and patient experience in practices of healing
We especially welcome ideas and explorations of sources that have thus far not been extensively examined from this perspective, as well as innovative modes of presentation.
Any inquiries and questions should be sent to the conference email: elbow.research@helsinki.fi.
Elbow 