CFP Kalamazoo 2011

Call for Papers: The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sessions I-VI

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 12-15 May 2011

An exciting suite of six sessions under the umbrella theme The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing will be presented at the 2011 Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. The four societies sponsoring these sessions -- Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages, AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML), and Societas Magica -- invite submissions that focus on sites, images, objects, and texts to explore the multivalent practices and meanings of healing in all its forms. A wide range of approaches is encouraged.

1. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing I: Sites and Images

2. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing II: Objects and Instruments (co-sponsors AVISTA and Medica)

Sessions I and II will focus on the art, architecture, and technologies of healing in the Middle Ages.

Contact: Barbara Bowers (AVISTA, bowers.41@buckeyemail.osu.edu)

3. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing III: Texts

4. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing IV: Texts (co-sponsors Medica and AVISTA)

Sessions III and IV will explore the different textual traditions in which medieval authors considered matters of health and healing. For example, papers might examine texts produced by and for scholastic physicians or laymen, questions about Latin and vernacular medical textual traditions, specific issues addressed in medical texts, such as theology, animal husbandry, etc., or the ways other literary genres draw upon or treat medical subjects.

Contact: Linda Migl Keyser (Medica, keyserl@georgetown.edu)

5. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing V: Texts (co-sponsors HMML and Medica)

Session V will focus on texts as a partial purveyor of healing knowledge to go along with architectural setting, art image, and artifact. Papers will discuss specific manuscripts, collections of healing prayers, recipes, and explore the healing properties of manuscripts as objects.

Contact: Theresa Vann (HMML, tvann@csbsju.edu)

6. The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing VI: Texts: Re-Siting (co-sponsors Societas Magica and Medica)

Session VI expands textual traditions to include additional sites, such as the body as text.

Contact: Marla Segol (Societas Magica, msegol@skidmore.edu)

Please send proposals for papers (abstracts of no more than 300 words) and a completed Participant Information Form by e-mail to the contact person for that session by 15 September 2010.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact either Linda Keyser (keyserl@georgetown.edu) or Barbara Bowers (bowers.41@buckeyemail.osu.edu).

CFP Leeds 2011

Medica and the Wellcome Trust are co-sponsoring a session on food and nutritional health at next year's Medieval Congress at Leeds. The Call for Papers follows:

International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 11-14 July 2011

The rich man's feast and the poor man's fare:

multidisciplinary approaches to food and nutritional health

in the Middle Ages

Sponsors: Wellcome Trust / Medica

In a recent article for the Journal of Medieval History Chris Woolgar drew attention to the rich multidisciplinary opportunities for research and collaboration afforded by the study of medieval food. Yet historical food and dietary health are still not very well established as an academic field and the subject seems ripe for exploration as part of the special thematic strand Poor … Rich at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds in 2011. We are looking for papers (for one or more sessions) that consider at least one of the following topics from a comparative socio-economic perspective (i.e. comparing rich and poor people’s nutrition and foodstuffs). We welcome international proposals from people working in museums, schools, historical re-enactment, food science and bioarchaeology, as well as from historians, art historians and literary specialists.

· Cooking medieval food for the modern public: problems and opportunities

· Teaching history through food

· Dietary health and regimen for rich and poor

· Eating and morality

· Feasting and fasting

· Food and charity

· Food production and food processing

· Bioarchaeological approaches

· Food and finance: medieval cost of eating

· Malnourishment, undernourishment, excess

· Social determinants of nutritional (ill-)health

The International Medieval Congress attracts over 1500 participants every year from more than forty countries, thus making it the largest conference of its kind in Europe. For more information, including registration, accommodation and bursaries, please go to http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2011_call.html. This call for papers is inspired by a new Wellcome Trust-funded engaging science award: You Are What You Ate: Food Lessons from the Past (grant no: 092293). Over the next three years the project will bring together historians, scientists, bioarchaeologists, re-enactors, museum officers and nutritionists in the exploration of diet and eating habits, past and present. There may be some project funds to cover registration costs at the congress for museum professionals and school teachers, and also re-enactors who are not in academic posts. Please make your status clear when sending in your proposal (appropriate proofs will be required).

Please send all proposals to: Iona McCleery, School of History, University of Leeds, LEEDS LS2 9JT, i.mccleery@leeds.ac.uk, phone: +44 (0)113 34 38543

Closing date for proposals: 9 September 2010 (submission 250 words, preferably by e-mail)

(submitted by Iona McCleery)