Corps et Médecine

The Graduate History Association and the Department of History at Washington University in St. Louis are pleased to announce the inaugural Graduate Conference on the History of the Body, to be held October 20-21, 2011.

In 2001, Roy Porter remarked that body history had become the « historiographical dish of the day. » Ten years on, histories of the body continue to flourish. Often working at the interstices of a number of methods and approaches, the field has produced innovative and compelling articulations of the body as a category of historical analysis. As thinking about bodies has occasioned ongoing encounters, clashes, and border-crossings between a variety of disciplines, this conference aims to promote conversations across scholarly divides by showcasing and reflecting on graduate-level scholarship on the history of the body, in all periods and regions, and from a variety of methodological approaches.
We invite papers related to a broad number of thematic areas, including but not limited to:

*normality and deviancy
*medicine and disease
*sexuality and reproduction
*food
*blood and race
*physical space

We’re also pleased to announce Professor Mary Fissell, renowned historian of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, as the conference keynote speaker. Professor Fissell’s first book, Patients, Power and the Poor (Cambridge 1991), examined how patients’ choices shaped a health-care system in the eighteenth century. Her more recent Vernacular Bodies (Oxford 2004) explored the politics of reproduction in early modern medicine. Professor Fissell’s current project involves Aristotle’s Masterpiece, for three centuries the best-selling book about sex and reproduction. Her address will be held in conjunction with the Washington University in St. Louis Department of History Colloquium Series.

Graduate Students in any field of study are invited to submit proposals for individual research papers. Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be submitted online:
http://history.artsci.wustl.edu/GHA/Conference.
**The deadline for submissions has been extended to June 30, 2011.**

Call for Papers – Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages : Infirmitas

Social and Cultural Approaches to Cure, Caring and Health

August 23 – 26, 2012 University of Tampere, Finland

The fifth international conference on Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages will focus on social and cultural approaches to health and illness, cure and caring, and notions of ability and disability. These topics are of major importance for communities and societies both in Antiquity and during the Middle Ages, yet research is still fragmentary and more synthetic and interdisciplinary approaches are rare.

We welcome papers which focus on different actors – institutions, communities, families or individuals – and have a sensitive approach to social differences: gender, age and status. Thus, our focus lies on society and the history of everyday life, on the differences and similarities between elite and popular culture, and on the expectations linked to gender and life-cycle stage, visible in the practices and policies under scrutiny. How were physical and mental disability/ability defined within daily life; what were the social consequences of illness; how was social interaction reflected in caring for the sick; how were cure and caring organised in families, communities and in society? We aim not to concentrate on medical or technical aspects of health and illness, but rather to integrate them in a larger social and cultural context.

The conference aims at broad coverage not only chronologically but also geographically and disciplinary (all branches of Classical and Medieval Studies). Most preferable are contributions having themselves a comparative and/or interdisciplinary perspective. The speakers of the conference will include Nancy Caciola (University of San Diego), Véronique Dasen (University of Fribourg), William V. Harris (Columbia University), and Christian Krötzl (University of Tampere).

If interested, please submit an abstract of 300 words (setting out thesis and conclusions) for a twenty-minute paper together with your contact details (with academic affiliation, address and e-mail) by e-mail attachment to the conference secretary, passages@uta.fi. The deadline for abstracts is September 15th 2011, and the notification of paper acceptance will be made in November 2011. Conference papers may be presented in major scientific languages, however supplied with English summary or translation if the language of presentation is not English. The registration fee is 100 € (post-graduate students: 50 €).

For further information, please visit http://www.uta.fi/trivium/passages/ or contact the organizers by e-mailing to passages@uta.fi. The registration opens in November 2011.

Organizing Committee:
Prof. Christian Krötzl, Prof. Katariina Mustakallio, Dr. Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, and Dr. Ville Vuolanto.

Call for Papers – Teeth, Dentists and Dentistry : History of Odontology and its Practicians in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Submission deadline August 31, 2011

On March 8th, 9th & 10th 2012 for the VIe Meeting of History of Medicine, medical practices and medical representations in ancient societies will be held at the MSH de Paris-Nord, the Université de Nanterre Paris-Ouest & the université de Versailles Saint-Quentin an international colloquium.

Visible or hidden, teeth play different parts in human life ; they express aggressiveness they allow chewing and contribute to deliver articulate speech. Sometimes they also interfer in the seduction process.

From Antiquity on, medical texts have dedicated many lines to mouth and teeth affections and to their possible treatments. We have access to anatomical knowledge, pathological descriptions and therapeutic means. Illustrations of teeth-puller in modern times won’t be forgotten, so that we will also ask the delicate question of the competence, reputation and status of the ancestors of dentists in society. Our chronological limit is 1728, when Pierre Fauchard published a treaty which helped dentistry to enter modern times.

This meeting intends to confront the mental and iconographical representations of the teeth as well as the various ways, medical or not, to improve hygiene and health. Odontology and stomatology should be submitted to historical analysis thanks to specialists of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern History.

Organisation : Franck Collard, Professeur d’histoire médiévale (Paris-Ouest Nanterre) et Evelyne Samama, Professeur d’histoire ancienne (Versailles Saint-Quentin)

Further information: Franck Collard, Professeur d’histoire médiévale (Paris-Ouest Nanterre) collard.franck@wanadoo.fr; et Evelyne Samama, Maître de conférences habilitée d’histoire ancienne (Reims) clevesam@wanadoo.fr.