Individuals – History of Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe

23/07/201823/07/2018

CFP – ‘Deformis Formositas ac Formosa Deformitas. The Ugliness of Beauty and the Beauty of Ugliness: Materializing Ugliness and Deformity in the Middle Ages’ – International Medieval Congress 2019 – July 1 – 4, 2019, University of Leeds.

‘Deformis Formositas ac Formosa Deformitas. The Ugliness of Beauty and the Beauty of Ugliness: Materializing Ugliness and Deformity in the Middle Ages’

Call for Papers for Session Proposal at the International Medieval Congress (IMC 2019)

July 1 – 4, 2019, University of Leeds.

The proposed session will discuss and debate on the various definitions and functions of the concept of “ugliness.” What is ugliness and how is it conceptualized? This session seeks original research which investigates debates on the concept of “ugliness” in various contexts:

Spiritual/physical/material ugliness;
Paradoxical nature of ugliness/irony/allegorical discourse;
Emotions and ugliness;
Functional aspects/Contrasts/Status and ugliness;
Didactic/moralistic functions;
Gendered aspects: ugliness belonging to other creatures;
Description/nature/character of ugliness;
Symbolism and patterns of transmission;
Comparative aspects of medieval beauty and ugliness;
Beauty within the context of ugliness in visual and textual sources;

Please submit a working title and a 250-word proposal for a 15-20 minute pape presentation by september 15th, 2018, the latest.

Contact informations :

Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, Ca’Foscari university, Venice, Italy (andrea.znorovszky@unive.it)

Theodora C. Artimon, Trivent Publishing, Budapest, Hungary

11/04/2018

Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance – Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as Idealized Anatomical Anomalies by Touba Ghadessi

Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance – Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as Idealized Anatomical Anomalies

by Touba Ghadessi

publication by Medieval Institute Publications

From the editors website :

“At the center of this interdisciplinary study are court monsters–dwarves, hirsutes, and misshapen individuals–who, by their very presence, altered Renaissance ethics vis-à-vis anatomical difference, social virtues, and scientific knowledge. The study traces how these monsters evolved from objects of curiosity, to scientific cases, to legally independent beings. The works examined here point to the intricate cultural, religious, ethical, and scientific perceptions of monstrous individuals who were fixtures in contemporary courts.”

More infos from the Editors website.

27/01/201827/01/2018

Meetings – Seminar – Birkbeck Medieval Seminar: The Productive Medieval Body, Fri 1 June 2018, Keynes Library, School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London.

Birkbeck Medieval Seminar: The Productive Medieval Body

Fri 1 June 2018,

Keynes Library, School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London.

The Birkbeck Medieval Seminar is an annual event. It is free and open to all scholars of the Middle Ages. It is designed to foster conversation and debate on a particular topic within medieval studies by providing the opportunity to hear new research from experts in the field. We are a welcoming and inclusive environment. This venue is fully accessible. Please contact Isabel Davis (i.davis@bbk.ac.uk) for further information or if you need help using the registration site.

Speakers:

Kim Phillips (Auckland);

Maaike van der Lugt (Paris – Diderot);

Vincent Gillespie (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford)

and Alicia Spencer-Hall (UCL).

Titles to be confirmed.

Coffee and tea is provided but you will need to find or bring your own lunch.

Please note: this is a free event and, as such, if you book a ticket and later find out that you cannot attend, please do cancel your booking so that your place can be made available to someone else.

More infos on the Evenbrite of the event

19/12/2017

Meeting – Neuro-handwriting analysis: Where the Medieval and the 21st Century Collide by The Trinity Long Room Hub, Arts and Humanities Research Institute – 18th january

Description

Presenters: Dr Deborah Thorpe (TCD), Professor Stephen Smith (University of York, UK), Dr Márjory Da Costa-Abreu (DIMAp/UFRN, Brazil)

Bios:
Dr Deborah Thorpe is a Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow. Trained as a palaeographer and a medical historian, she uses a combination of historical handwriting analysis and neurological insight to analyse the impact of ageing and age-related medical disorders on medieval script.

Professor Stephen Smith is a professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York. His research is centred on developing evolutionary algorithms, a form of artificial intelligence, and applying them to the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s through the analysis of patients’ movements. Stephen is also co-founder and director of ClearSky Medical Diagnostics Ltd., a university spin-out company set up with the assistance of the Royal Academy of Engineering that markets clinically validated medical devices, developed from his research. Stephen is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Dr. Márjory Da Costa-Abreu is a lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at DIMAp/UFRN. She has a PhD in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent (UK) and a MSc in Computer Science from UFRN (BR). She has experience in Biometrics analysis and identity prediction, forensics, the effects of ageing in biometrics and soft-biometric prediction techniques.

More info on Evenbrite website.

08/12/2017