Conferences

Calls for Papers

Past Conferences

IMC Leeds 2024

From epidemics and famine to barber surgeons and midwives, healing during the Middle Ages represented the ultimate response to social and personal crises. While the medieval medical experience was often a tale of hardship and loss, historians of medicine continue to demonstrate that healing knowledge and practice in this period also revealed remarkable resilience, practicality, and innovation. In these sessions, Medica hopes to explore how society and individuals coped with health crises and the healing interventions that resulted from these events. 

Tuesday, 2 July (11:15-12:45 GMT)

Session: 635

Location: 1.01 (Esther Simpson Building)

Exploring Medieval Health Crises, I: Author in Crisis

This session will explore instances when the author experiences their own crisis in writing.

Moderator: Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster)

Tig Lang (Independent Scholar): 'Tales of the Unexpected': The Medieval Surgeon Deals with Emergencies

Ginger Smoak (Honors College, University of Utah): The Thin Line between Child Birth/Death: The Crises of Fetal and Maternal Death in Medieval Midwifery

Lauren Cole (Department of History, Northwestern University): Personal Crises and the Production of Medical Knowledge: Hildegard of Bingen's Physica

Tuesday, 2 July (14:15-15:45 GMT)

Session: 735

Location: 1.01 (Esther Simpson Building)

Exploring Medieval Health Crises, II: Materia Medica

Session II will explore what remains from healing, from texts to prostheses. 

Moderator: Winston Black (St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia)

Alba Lara Granero (Department of Hispanic Studies, Brown University): Crisis of the Senses: Synesthetic Healing and Health Discourses in Isabel de Villena's Vita Christi

Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster): Mineral materia medica: Sources and Methods of the Lapidary Trade in Medieval and Early Modern England

Tuesday, 2 July (16:30-18:00 GMT)

Session: 835

Location: 1.01 (Esther Simpson Building)

Exploring Medieval Health Crises, III: Framing Shifts in Knowledge

This final session will explore both shifts in contemporary and modern understandings of healing.

Moderator: Ginger Smoak (Honors College, University of Utah)

Quinty Uitman (Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds): 'Tis but a flesh wound': Exploring the Appearance and Function of the Wound Man in Late Medieval Medicine

Winston Black (St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia): Herbals, Heresy, and Humanism: 15th-Century Reinventions of Macer Floridus 

Naama Cohen-Hanegbi (Department of History, Tel Aviv University): Care of Postpartum Mental Crisis in the Later Middle Ages

Tuesday, 2 July (20:00-21:00 GMT)

Session: 935

Location: 1.01 (Esther Simpson Building)

Exploring Medieval Health Crises, IV: A Roundtable Discussion

Moderator: Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster)

Participants: Ginger Smoak (Honors College, University of Utah), Winston Black (St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia), Lauren Cole (Department of History, Northwestern University), Naama Cohen-Hanegbi (Department of History, Tel Aviv University), Alba Lara Granero (Department of Hispanic Studies, Brown University), Quinty Uitman (Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds)


IMCS Kalamazoo 2024

Inspired by and in remembrance of Rudolph Bell (Holy Anorexia, How to Do It), who passed away in 2022, these panels seek to honor his legacy by exploring the role of healing and traditional knowledge in relation to sex in the Middle Ages. In particular, in how people experienced fertility issues, impotence, pregnancy, as well as postpartum care. 

Thursday, 9 May (12:00-13:00 EST)

Medica Business Meeting

ID: 5448

Join us for our annual meeting at Kalamazoo. If you have questions, please feel free to email us: medievalmedica@gmail.com

Saturday, 11 May (13:30-15:00 EST) [Hybrid]

ID: 5183

Location: Sangren 2710

I Want to Sex (Ed) You Up (1): From Conception to Postpartum 

How to conceive, carry, and birth a baby was not just the concern of midwives and hopeful parents, but also practitioners. This panel seeks to explore all the elements, including miscarriage and abortion, tied up with the consequences of sex.

Moderator: Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster)

Ginger Smoak (Honors College, University of Utah): The Role of Food in Medieval Conception, Pregnancy, and Childbirth

Anne C. Leone (Syracuse University): Consequences of Sex in Late Medieval Italy

Minji Lee (Montclair State University): Mouth and the Mouth of the Womb: How to Deliver in Hildegard of Bingen's Vision

Saturday, 11 May (15:30-17:00 EST) [In Person]

Location: Sangren 2110

ID: 5186

I Want to Sex (Ed) You Up (2): From Infection to Impotence 

This panel will explore the risks of ‘doing it,’ ranging from charms for impotence to pharmaceutical remedies for sexually transmitted diseases, this session will explore sexual health, knowledge, and healing.

Moderator: Dianne Burke Moneypenny (Indiana University East)

Courtney A. Krolikoski (Jacksonville University): “She get it from her mama”: Sex, Gender, and the Transmission of Leprosy

Iona Lister (University of Toronto): Nocturnal Omissions: Friar Henry Daniel on Sex and Disease

Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster): From the Battlefield to the Bedroom: Lapidary Aids for Medieval Masculinity

IMC Leeds 2023

Monday, 3 July (19:00-20:00 GMT)

Session: 437 

Networks of Non-Traditional Healing and Knowledge: A Round Table Discussion 

Acknowledging that the study of pre-modern medicine has often focused on orthodox knowledge and formal networks of communication, this round table discussion seeks to focus on informal networks of care and methods of healing not traditionally included in studies of medieval and early modern health and healing. 

Participants: Nichola Harris (State University of New York, Ulster), Fiona Lillian Knight (University of Cambridge), and Joshua Rice (Royal Holloway, University of London).

Moderator: Anna M. Peterson (Universidad de Cantabria)

Wednesday, 5 July (11:15-12:45 GMT)

Session: 1128 

Networks of Non-Traditional Healing and Knowledge 

Moderator: Nichola Harris (Department of Social Science, History & Education, State University of New York, Ulster)

Kristin Uscinski (School of Humanities, State University of New York, Purchase): Ending with a Period: Recipes to Stop Menstruation in Medieval England

Fiona Lillian Knight (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge): Affectively Charged Illustration in the Works of John Arderne 

Joshua Rice (Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London): Heretical Healers: Networks of Heretical Medical Practitioners in Thirteenth-Century Southern France  

Elke Krotz (Institut für Germanistik, Universität Wien): The Networks around Anna of Hohenlohe