ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter lays the ground work for a new cross-disciplinary project across the sciences, social sciences and humanities focused on oral health. In situating the multi-topic chapters of the book within four themes that cut across anthropology, history, English literature, sociology and dental public health, this introduction seeks to outline the significance of oral health beyond the confines of dentistry, the discipline in which oral health and its subject – the mouth – have been most commonly studied, and highlights the centrality of oral health to so many aspects of the lived experience, from social justice to cultural imaginaries. It also highlights how oral health came to be the subject of dentistry as a historically constructed phenomenon, as well as suggests the limitations of dentistry as a discipline. Through its survey of oral health, past and present, this introductory chapter also suggests ways in which this cross-disciplinary project might serve to aid oral health futures.
