Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Medica at Kalamazoo 2020



We're happy to announce Medica's sessions for the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan from May 7-10, 2020.


1) Healing and the Healer in Medieval Popular Culture

Laine E. Doggett, “Popular Medicine in Rutebeuf’s “Le Dit de l’herberie”: Weighing Salescraft and Healing Knowledge in Selling Remedies”

Hannah Lloyd, “‘To Your Health!’: Examining the Influence of Medical Knowledge on Fourteenth-Century English Cuisine”

Helga Ruppe, “Sir Knight, Heal Thyself; Healing Among Knights Errant in Some Early Grail Narratives”

Rachel Podd, “’She is said to be a Diviner”: Recovering Empirical Medical Practice in the Fourteenth Century Catalonian Pastoral Visitations”


2) Desire and Disease: The Medicalization of Sex in the Middle Ages

Nichola Harris, “Fertility and Faithlessness: Medieval Aphrodisiacs Repurposed as Treatments for Venereal Diseases in Early Modern England”

Minji Lee, “Sex is not the Treatment for Every Woman: Hildegard of Bingen’s Temperament Theory regarding Women’s Sexual Life”

Danijela Zutic, “Sex, holes and late medieval Regimen Sanitatis book”


3) New Ways to Teach Medieval Medicine (a roundtable)

Lee Mordechai, “The Justinianic Plague app as a resource for teaching and research”

Nükhet Varlik, “Black Death Digital Archive: A Multidisciplinary Database of the Second Plague Pandemic”

Winston Black, “Choosing and Using Medieval Medicine Primary Sources”

Lori Jones, “Imaging Medieval Medicine in the Classroom”

Lucy C. Barnhouse, “"But Did They Know What They Were Doing?" Medieval Medicine in the Undergraduate Classroom”


We are also co-sponsoring, with Beneventan Studies, a session on "Medieval Interdisciplinarity: Knowledge-Transfer in Medieval Southern Italy II: Medicine and Sciences:"

Jeffrey Doolitte,"Establishing a Space for Medicine at Montecassino: Hildemar of Corbie's Expositio of the Rule of St. Benedict (Montecassino, Arch. dell'Abbazia, Cod. 175)"

F. Eliza Glaze,  "Salerno and the Articella in the 12th Century: Problems and Prospects"

Francis Newton, "Medicine, Rhetoric, Theological Debate: Scribes and their Personal Dossiers in the Production of Aberdeen MS 106"

Finally, we'll be holding our annual business meeting at noon on Thursday and a reception on Friday evening. Please join us for both, if you're able! More details will follow closer to the event.

Friday, August 23, 2019

CFP for Medica sessions at ICMS in Kalamazoo 2020

Medica is seeking paper proposals for two sessions to be held at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan from May 7-10, 2020.

1) Healing and the Healer in Medieval Popular Culture 
DESCRIPTION: This session seeks to explore the perceptions and understandings of health maintenance, disease prevention and treatment, medical practitioners, etc., in the practices of healers outside the university sphere in the Middle Ages. The practices of women healers, religious-based healers, practitioners of folk medicine, healing saints, and other empirically-trained doctors would be ideal topics of analysis for this session. Possible papers could examine sources like household recipe books, legal regulations of medical practice, depictions of healing in popular literature, artistic representations of healers, or similar sources.


2) Desire and Disease: The Medicalization of Sex in the Middle Ages 
DESCRIPTION: This session is open to investigations of sexuality and medicine in the Middle Ages. This might include papers on sexually transmitted diseases, sexual dysfunction, methods to increase/inhibit sexual desire, or treatments to test for or enhance fertility. Other topics could include perceptions of how emotions of desire might affect an individual’s health, or concerns for how the body shapes desire in various ways. 

If interested, please submit an abstract of roughly 250-300 words along with a Participant Information Form (PIF), which can be found at http://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions. Any graduate student who has a paper accepted will be eligible to apply for Medica's Travel Award of $100 to help expenses. All proposal materials are due by September 15, 2019. If you have questions about either of the sessions, or would like to submit an abstract, please direct emails to Harry York at why@pdx.edu.

Medica is also organizing a roundtable on teaching the history of medicine in the Middle Ages: New Ways to Teach Medieval Medicine
DESCRIPTION:  This roundtable brings together scholars who will explore new tools and methods for teaching medieval medicine. The tools and ideas presented here are intended for anyone who might wish to include a module on health and disease in a broader course on the Middle Ages, not only for those seeking to teach courses focused on medieval medicine. Some speakers will examine various new digital technologies available for use in classroom settings. Others will consider the ways in which the history of medicine might be taught in the broader context of the global Middle Ages.



Finally, we are also co-sponsoring a session with Beneventan Studies:

TITLE: Medieval Interdisciplinarity: Knowledge-Transfer in Medieval Southern Italy II: Medicine and Sciences
DESCRIPTION: The importance of Montecassino and the Beneventan Zone in the history of the transmission of the classics for the trivium has long been recognized. Only recently has the pivotal role of the Zone for the history of the collection, translation, transmission and dissemination of scientific works come to the fore. The two sessions build on new/forthcoming publications on key Southern Italian manuscript witnesses of this transfer asks how knowledge transfer (particular of works of the quadrivium and medical sciences) occurred (into, within, and from the Zone), and what was the relationship between innovative learning across the sciences. Session II focuses new scholarship on medical and scientific learning.

For more information about this session, or to submit a proposal, please contact Andrew J. M. Irving at a.j.m.irving@rug.nl.

Monday, April 15, 2019



Medica is pleased to sponsor two sessions at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 9-12, 2019)

Leprosy in the City: Medical, Charitable, and Regulatory Responses to Leprosy in the Middle Ages
Thursday, May 9 at 1:30pm in Schneider 1120

Chiara Giancoli, “Medical, Charitable, and Regulatory Responses to Leprosy in Two of the Catholic Homilies by Ælfric of Eynsham”

Rebecca Hall, “The Impact of Cross Religious Contact on Leprosy Sufferers in the Crusader Kingdoms”

Anna M. Peterson, “‘Let these institutions be governed by prudent suitable men of good repute’: Leprosaria and Accountability in the Medieval West (ca. 1200–1342)

Aleksandra N. Pfau, “Lepers in the Streets: Movement of Lepers in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century France”


Women Healers in Medieval Family and Community Life
Thursday, May 9 at 3:30pm in Schneider 1160

Ruth Dwyer, “Theodora and the Mystery of Justinian’s Cure, Solved

Nichola Harris, “Hildegard’s Heterodoxy: Sources and the Application of Lapidary Knowledge in Physica “


The Medica Business Meeting will be held on Thursday, May 9, from 12:00-12:45 in Bernhard 157/158. Bring lunch and help plan future sessions.