The Sacred and the Secular at Kalamazoo 2011 - Final Listing

Dear Friends and Members,

At this year's International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University (May 12-15, Kalamazoo, Michigan), Medica joins forces with AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art to present the following 4 sessions devoted to examining The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing (SSMH):

Thursday 10 a.m. - Bernhard Brown & Gold Room
(Session 47) SSMH I: Images and Objects
Organizers: Barbara S. Bowers (Ohio State Univ.) and Linda Migl Keyser (Univ. of Maryland)
Presider: Carol Neuman de Vegvar (Ohio Wesleyan Univ.)

Cure for the Common Common: Images and Objects Used by the Lower Classes for Healing, Protecting and Worship
Sarah Blick (Kenyon College)
Loadstones are a Girl's Best Friend: Lapidary Cures, Midwives, and Manuals of Popular Healing in Medieval and Early Modern England
Nichola E. Harris (SUNY-Ulster)
Early Medieval Crystal Amulets: Secular Instruments of Protection and Healing
Genervra Kornbluth (Kornbluth Photography)

Thursday 1:30 p.m. - Bernhard Brown & Gold Room
(Session 93) SSMH II: Sites
Organizers: Barbara S. Bowers (Ohio State Univ.) and Linda Migl Keyser (Univ. of Maryland)
Presider: Iona McCleery (Univ. of Leeds)

The Hospital Chapel at Tonnerre: Altars, Liturgy, and Relics
Lynn T. Courtenay (Univ. of Wisconsin - Whitewater and Madison)
Performative Thaumaturgy: The State of Research on Curative and Spiritual Interaction at Medieval Pilgrimage Shrines
Jim Bugslag (Univ. of Manitoba)
Life Insurance in the Medieval Period: Insights Offered by the Distribution of Pilgrims' Badges Recently Found in England

Michael Lewis (British Museum)

Thursday 3:30 p.m. - Bernhard Brown & Gold Room
(Session 140) SSMH III: Vernacular Texts
Organizers: Linda Migl Keyser (Univ. of Maryland) and Barbara S. Bowers (Ohio State Univ.)
Presider: Linda Migl Keyser (Univ. of Maryland)

Speaking Physic in Late Medieval England
Julie Orlemanski (Humanities Center, Harvard Univ.)
Middle Dutch Women's Secrets in a Courtly Context
Orlanda S.H. Lie (Univ. Utrecht)
Humans, Animals, and Veterinary Medicine in the Middle Ages
William H. York (Portland State University)

Thursday 7:30 p.m. - Bernhard Brown & Gold Room
(Session 170) SSMH IV: Texts, Plagues, and Religious Healing
Organizers: Linda Migl Keyser (Univ. of Maryland) and Barbara S. Bowers (Ohio State Univ.)
Presider: William H. York (Portland State University)

Plague in Bede's Prose Life of Cuthbert
Michelle Ziegler (St. Louis Univ.)
Religious and Medical Interpretations of Pestilence in the Late Middle Ages
Otto Gecser (Eotvos Lorand Univ./Central European Univ.)

Hope and Heat: Secular Medicine and Human Faith in Two Late Medieval Resurrection Miracles
Leigh Ann Craig (Virigina Commonwealth Univ.)

Also note that Medica's annual Business Meeting will convene on Thursday at 12:00 noon in the Bernhard Brown & Gold Room. We'll be discussing plans for future Medica sessions at Kalamazoo and Leeds, as well as plans for growing the society. All are welcome; bring a lunch and a friend. This is an open meeting for members and anyone interested in researching illness and healing in the Middle Ages.

The full program for the conference can be accessed at www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html.

Come join the fun. See you in May,

Linda Migl Keyser
Medica, President

Notes from the President

This year at Kalamazoo . . .

Dear Members and Friends,

I’m happy to report another successful conference as Medica continues its tradition of sponsoring sessions at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, held at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo. Our session “Medicine as Metaphor” was well attended, and both speakers' presentations were enthusiastically received and prompted lively responses from the audience.

Of special note, this year we officially initiated our first annual Medica Graduate Student Award which includes a stipend of $250. I was delighted to begin our session by introducing Virginia Langum, who received the 2009 award for her paper The Surgeon as Confessor and Priest. Virginia is in the final year of a Ph.D. in English at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. Her research examines intersections between medicine, religion and literature.

The abstract for Virginia’s winning paper as well as for the session’s other fine paper, Julia Schlozman’s Christ among the Surgeons: Piety and Surgical Practice in a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript, are recorded below. See the Medica website for more information about the award.

As usual, we also held our society’s annual business meeting at the congress. The meeting was well attended, and in addition to finalizing proposals for Medica sessions at next year’s 45th congress, we also discussed plans to co-sponosor with AVISTA (The Association Villard de Honnecourt for Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art) a day of sessions on Secular and Sacred Sites of Healing at the 46^th International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo in 2011. More news to come.

Announcements and Updates:

• Gentle reminder to all members -- if you haven’t done so already, it’s time to pay your 2009 membership dues. Annual dues for Medica is $20 for full-time professionals and $10 for retired faculty, part-time faculty, and students. Make out checks to Medica and mail to our Treasurer and Secretary, Gerard NeCastro, Department of English, 9 O’Brien Avenue, University of Maine at Machias, Machias, ME 04654. For more information contact Gerard at necastro@maine.edu.

• Announcement of our accepted sessions at the 45^th International Medieval Congress in 2010 will be made in July 2009.

• Please check out the Medica website for more information on the 2010 Graduate Student Award and be sure to encourage talented graduate students pursuing research on medieval medicine to apply.

Lastly, let me welcome all Medica members and friends to our society’s newly initiated Medica blog. Though still in its nascent form, I hope that as Medica grows and develops, it will provide a useful venue of communication for our members and friends.

Cheers,

Linda Migl Keyser