Interdisciplinarity – Page 2 – History of Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe

24/10/2018

Call for Book Chapter Proposals – Intersections of Critical Animal Studies and Critical Disability Studies

This edited volume aims to contribute to an emergent body of literature located at the intersection of critical animal studies and critical disability studies. This volume seeks to illuminate innovative ways to theorize and empirically examine the encounters between disabled/non-disabled human and disabled/non-disabled nonhuman animals, while providing a balanced portrait of the different experiences and perspectives of these social actors. This edited volume will be submitted for consideration as part of the Multispecies Encounters series published by Routledge.

The proposed volume will contain 10 to 12 chapters of approximately 20 pages each. Providing for an interdisciplinary view of current work at the intersections of critical animal and disability studies, we welcome submissions from a wide range of academic fields. At this stage, the editors invite book chapter abstracts (250 words maximum) submitted with a tentative title and brief author biography. Please send abstracts for review by December 15, 2018 in a Word format to: Alan Santinele Martino at santina@mcmaster.ca and Sarah May Lindsay at lindsays@mcmaster.ca. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We expect to have the book proposal submitted to the publisher by January 31, 2019.

Volume Editors:

Dr. Samantha Hurn (University of Exeter)
Sarah May Lindsay (McMaster University)
Alan Santinele Martino (McMaster University)

01/08/2018

CFP – “Disability and the Medieval Cults of Saints: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches” – edited volume by Stephanie Grace-Petinos, Leah Pope Parker, and Alicia Spencer-Hall

CFP: Disability and the Medieval Cults of Saints: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches

Discussion published by Massimo Rondolino on Friday, July 27, 2018

Editors: Stephanie Grace-Petinos, Leah Pope Parker, and Alicia Spencer-Hall

We invite abstract submissions for 7,500-word essays to be included in an edited volume on the topic of Disability and the Medieval Cults of Saints. Because saints’ cults in the Middle Ages centralized the body—those of the saints themselves, those of devotees, and the idea of the body on earth and in the afterlife—scholars of medieval disability frequently find that our best sources are those that also deal with saints and sanctity. This volume therefore seeks to foster and assemble a wide range of approaches to disability in the context of medieval saints’ cults. We seek contributions spanning a variety of fields, including history, literature, art history, archaeology, material culture, histories of science and medicine, religious history, etc. We especially encourage contributions that extend beyond Roman Christianity (including non-Christian concepts of sanctity) and that extend beyond Europe/the West.

For the purposes of this volume, we define “disability” as broadly including physical impairment, diversity of bodily forms, chronic illness, neurodiversity (mental illness, cognitive impairment, etc), sensory impairment, and any other variation in bodily form or ability that affected medieval individuals’ role and treatment in their communities. We are open to topics spanning the medieval period both temporally and geographically, but also inclusive of late antiquity and the early modern era. The editors envision essays falling into three units: saints with disabilities; saints interacting with disability; and theorizing sanctity/disability.

We welcome proposals on topics including, but not limited to:

· Phenomenology of saints’ cults with respect to disability, e.g. pilgrimage, feast days, liturgy, etc;

· Materiality of sanctity involved in reliquaries, shrines, and relics;

· Doctrinal approaches to disability in relation to sanctity and holiness;

· Sanctity and bodies in the archaeological record;

· Intersections of disability and race/gender/sexuality/etc in hagiography, art, and material culture;

· Healing miracles and disabling miraculous punishments;

· Cross-cultural approaches to sanctity and disability;

· Saints who wrote about disability;

· Specific saints with connections to concepts of disability, e.g. Margaret of Antioch, Cosmas and Damian, Francis of Assisi, Dymphna, etc;

· Theorizing sanctity in relation to disability; and

· Saintly figures in non-hagiographic genres.

Timeline

Oct. 1, 2018 Proposals due

Oct. 31, 2018 Replies sent to proposals

Nov. 30, 2018 Volume proposal submitted to press (contributors will provide short abstracts and bios)

May 31, 2019 Essays due from contributors

Aug. 30, 2019 Editors deliver extensive feedback to contributors

Jan. 15, 2020 Revised essays due from contributors

April 3, 2020 Full volume manuscript delivered to press

Please submit abstracts of 300–400 words, along with a short author bio and a description of any images you anticipate wanting to include in your essay, to the editors at DisabilitySanctity@gmail.com by Monday, October 1, 2018.

26/07/201826/07/2018

CFP – IMCS Kalamazoo 2019 – The Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages propose 3 themes: Medieval Disability and Pedagogy – Intersections of Race and Disability in the Global Middle Ages – Disability and Public Scholarship.

The Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages Invites Proposals for the International Congress on Medieval StudiesMay 9-12 2019, Kalamazoo, MI

Medieval Disability and Pedagogy (a roundtable)

Contributors will discuss the ways in which disability has informed approaches to instruction, how to unite disability pedagogy and scholarship, possible texts for inclusion in the classroom, and selected assignments and activities that involve the medieval disability perspective. Participants will share practical ideas for effective activities, assignments, and readings.

Intersections of Race and Disability in the Global Middle Ages (a session of papers)

In this session, contributors will offer papers that explore the intersections between race and disability in the Middle Ages. We particularly seek approaches that consider non-Western, inter-disciplinary perspectives.

Disability and Public Scholarship (a session of papers)

In this session, participants will discuss the responsibilities of medieval disability studies to engage in public scholarship, how we can share our own public scholarship, and the ways that we as medieval disability studies scholars can be more active in public scholarship in order to support the value of our research.

Please send 250-word abstracts along with completed Participant Information Form to Tory Pearman at pearmatv@miamioh.edu by September 15.

Because medieval disability studies should pursue inclusive and intersectional scholarship, the SSDMA is committed to including perspectives representative of the diversity of the field and to amplifying voices that are too often marginalized by systemic discrimination in academic employment, publishing, funding, and conference programming

More infos on the organisator’s website !

20/02/201822/02/2018

Meeting – Workshop – The All-seeing eye? Vision and Eyesight Across Time and Cultures Workshop, 2018

The All-seeing eye?

Vision and Eyesight Across Time and Cultures Workshop, 2018

Wed 11 April 2018 – 09:30 – 17:00

A call for papers has been issued for this workshop which will explore medical, social, and cultural meanings of the eye and vision in contemporary and historical perspective. Vision has often provoked fascination within societies and cultures as the most revered sense. In Western Europe, the eye has been viewed scientifically as the most ‘exquisite’ organ, or spiritually as a ‘window to the soul’. These positions have had an influence on how the eye has been perceived, both as a vital organ and, by implication, one that needed to be protected. Whilst the eye could bring delight to its holder, and be symbolic in a variety of ways, it could also, when lost, incur significant impairment. The workshop will explore this vision impairment and correction, and the extent to which sight loss has been stigmatised. It will welcome papers that explore eyesight and its meanings across time and place, to encourage trans-historical and interdisciplinary discussion

Programme :

9.30am Registration

10am Panel One

Dr Corinne Doria, Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne University; University of Milan, ‘Defining Normal Vision. Eye charts in 19^th Century Europe’

Dr Andy Flack, University of Bristol, ‘Vision and touch in the depths of the Mammoth Cave’

Dr Deborah Ellen Thorpe, Trinity College, Dublin, ‘“Mynde, ye, and hand”: A palaeographical approach to medieval eyesight deterioration’

First Break

11.45-12.45 Keynote

Professor Graeme Gooday, ‘Beyond the visual: alternatives to ocularcentric histories of bodies and technologies’

Lunch

1.45pm Panel Two

Dr Ben Curtis, University of Wolverhampton, ‘‘The dread now prevailing’: Miners’ Nystagmus in the South Wales Coalfield in the Early Twentieth Century’,

Dr Karen Beauchamp-Pyror, Honorary Research Fellow, College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, ‘Losses and gains: the impact of regaining and restoring vision’

Dr Michelle Carr, College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, ‘Seeing in Your Dreams’

Second Break

3.30pm Panel Three

Colin Harding, AHRC CDP Candidate, Imperial War Museum and University of Brighton, ‘Repairing War’s Ravages: Horace Nicholls’ photographs of prosthetic masks’

Iain Riddell, PhD Student, University of Leicester, School of Media, Communication & Sociology (Member of the Science Advisory Committee for the Childhood Cancer Trust, 2015-2018), ‘Making a beginning Retinoblastoma in adulthood, psycho-social contexts and imperatives’

4.45-5pm Wrap up the Day

Contact Information:

Gemma.Almond@sciencemuseum.ac.uk or Gemma.Almond@swansea.ac.uk

More infos on their website

31/01/201808/04/2020

New publication – Book – Viewing Disability in Medieval Spanish Texts by Connie L. Scarborough.

Viewing Disability in Medieval Spanish Texts

by Connie L. Scarborough.

Amsterdam University Press,

Series: Premodern Health, Disease, and Disability

Description by the editor :

“This book is one of the first to examine medieval Spanish canonical works for their portrayals of disability in relationship to theological teachings, legal precepts, and medical knowledge. Connie L. Scarborough shows that physical impairments were seen differently through each lens. Theology at times taught that the disabled were “marked by God,” their sins rendered on their bodies; at other times, they were viewed as important objects of Christian charity. The disabled often suffered legal restrictions, allowing them to be viewed with other distinctive groups, such as the ill or the poor. And from a medical point of view, a miraculous cure could be seen as evidence of divine intervention. This book explores all these perspectives through medieval Spain’s miracle narratives, hagiographies, didactic tales, and epic poetry. ”

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction: Disability Theory and Pre-Modern Considerations
Disability Theories: Definitions and Limitations
Adapting Disability Studies for the Pre-Modern Era
The Role of the Church and Christian Beliefs
Disability Studies and Literary Texts
Goals and Organization

1 Lameness – Los Contrechos
Definitions and Theories
Legal Status
Historical and Pseudo-Scientific Accounts
Work and Occupational Hazards
Mobility Devices
Divine Punishment
Ridicule and Example
The Monstrous

2 Blindness – Los Ciegos
Medieval Theories of Sight
Causes for Loss of Sight
Religious Beliefs
Begging and Charity
Blinding as Judicial Punishment
Blinding as Divine Punishment
Self-Blinding
Comic Potential

3 Deafness and Inability to Speak – Los Sordomudos
Deaf vs. deaf
Legal status
Cures (?)
Popular Refrains and Wisdom Literature
Spiritual Autobiography/Pathography/Consolation
Loss of Speech

4 Leprosy – Los Gafos
Medical Knowledge
Segregation (?)
The Leper as Metaphor
Leprosy as Divine Punishment
Leper as Holy Messenger
Leper as Figure in Religious History
Leprosy and ‘Tests of Friendship’

5 Cured by the Grace of God – Los Milagros
The Medieval Concept of Miracle
Miracle Accounts
Missing Limbs
Lameness and Paralysis
Multiple Impairments
Blindness
Deafness and Inability to Speak
Leprosy
Interdependence of Disability and Divine Cure

6 Conclusions
Works Cited
Index

More infos on the editor website.