The history of masculinities and virility have received considerable attention since the 1990s as part of gender history. Research underlines the need to destabilize the association between gender and women to expand historical knowledge. Additionally, it highlights women’s agency and nuances their depiction as passive victims of a masculine history as it shows how masculinity is constructed in relation to femininity.

Contrasting with the important body of literature on women’s medicalization, men’s health remains an understudied field of historical research. This lack of attention is surprising, given the fact that medical history initially focused on men’s experiences and that social epidemiology has shown since the 1970s a higher death rate for men in relation to their social and professional status.

This special issue explores the intersection between different social relations (such as gender, class or race) to highlight the production of power and knowledge in health practices. We will not accept masculinist or antifeminist perspectives. Using masculinities as a category of analysis, we aim to question the medical production of sexual difference from a critical perspective. We welcome contributions studying various times, ranging from Antiquity to the contemporary period.

Articles may explore different themes:

• Medical historiography: How to conceptualize a history of health practices around masculinities? How does the concept of “masculinities” shift the focus of medical history and health?

• Representations in knowledge and clinical practices: What kind of (changing) representations are produced in medical knowledge and clinical practices around men’s health? What differences exist between discourses and practices and how are diagnoses created and circulated?

• Intersectionality, coloniality and power: How are masculinities produced in colonial and postcolonial health systems? How to question the production of difference between local, ‘traditional’, and Western scientific knowledge? How can an intersectional approach help to question nosological and epidemiological knowledge around male health?

Submission

Interested authors should send an abstract (4000 signs, spaces included) and a short author-bio to santemasculinehms@gmail.com by the 15^th of April 2021.

Articles can be submitted in French or English.

Authors will receive notifications by the 30^th of May 2021. Full paper submissions according to the journal’s guidelines (https://0-journals-openedition-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/hms/757?lang=en) will be due by the 1^st of September 2021 for the journal’s double-blind peer review process. We expect final publication in fall 2022.

Scientific committee

Francesca Arena (iEH2/Maison de l’Histoire, Université de Genève), Camille Bajeux (IHM, Université de Lausanne/Institut des Etudes genre, Université de Genève), Joelle Schwartz (Unisanté/FBM, Université de Lausanne) et Aude Fauvel (IHM-CHUV/FBM, Université de Lausanne).