{"id":481,"date":"2018-09-12T07:54:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T07:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/irhs\/?p=361"},"modified":"2019-04-02T14:16:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T13:16:54","slug":"call-for-papers-disease-ease-1500-1800","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/health-humanities\/call-for-papers-disease-ease-1500-1800\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Papers: Disease & Ease, 1500-1800"},"content":{"rendered":"

University of Reading Conference, 1-2 July 2020<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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[Please note that the original dates for this conference were 3-4\u00a0July 2019<\/span>, but one of the conference organisers has since found out she is\u00a0expecting a baby, and will be on maternity leave in the summer of 2019, hence the new dates]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018O how sweet is rest and ease after Sickness and pain!\u2019, exclaimed the Lancashire minister and medical practitioner James Clegg (1679\u20131755) when he found himself \u2018much better\u2019 from a month-long ague. This 2-day conference will investigate what exactly sickness and health felt like <\/em>for patients such as Clegg. We invite abstracts for\u00a020-minute<\/strong> papers on the diverse sensations, emotions, thoughts, and spiritual feelings of patients and their families and practitioners from \u2018the first invasion\u2019 of illness to \u2018perfect recovery\u2019, chronic debility, or death. By encompassing all states, signs, stages, and outcomes of disease in early modern Europe and the wider world, Disease & Ease <\/em>seeks to broaden and rebalance our overall picture of premodern health, showing that not all conditions \u2018carried the patient to the grave\u2019. Lately, a number of scholarly centres for the medical humanities have been restyled as centres for \u2018health humanities\u2019, a linguistic adjustment indicative of a growing desire to expand the remits of the field to incorporate a greater array of physical and mental states, including health itself. It thus seems an opportune moment to hold a conference which considers experiences of health and ease alongside sickness and suffering.<\/p>\n

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L0019338 P. Boone, Allegories of the senses (1651). Wellcome Library, London. CC BY 4.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since Roy Porter\u2019s call for a \u2018medical history from below<\/a>\u2019 (1985), much has been written about the early modern patient. The first swathe of research focused mainly on patients\u2019 practical responses to sickness, such as their choices of therapies and practitioners. In the 1990s, scholars became increasingly interested in the somatic aspects of illness, as exemplified in Barbara Duden\u2019s seminal text, Woman Beneath the Skin<\/em><\/a>. The bourgeoning of the histories of pain and emotions in the 2000s has significantly revitalized and enriched this research, and now \u2013 encouraged by the forthcoming meeting of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health<\/a> \u2013 a sensory approach has been added into the mix. Disease & Ease <\/em>will showcase and evaluate these exciting developments, and consider current and future challenges and opportunities. Drawing on all manner of sources, from bed-sheets to doctors\u2019 casebooks, the conference will enable us to reach a new level of empathy for patients in the past as well as the present, while forging fruitful links between scholars working in a variety of disciplines within the health humanities.<\/p>\n

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We are excited to announce two keynote speakers, Professor Michael Stolberg <\/strong><\/a>(University of W\u00fcrzburg), a world-leading scholar of early modern experiences of sickness and death, and Professor Sasha Handley<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>(University of Manchester), who is at the forefront of research on wellbeing and health, with a focus on the material culture of sleep.<\/p>\n

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Our conference will conclude with a compelling roundtable discussion\u00a0<\/strong>on how the experience of health and illness has changed over time; discussants include expert patient and Ambassador for the MS Society and ADD International, Trishna Bharadia<\/strong><\/a>, philosopher of illness at the University of Bristol, Professor Havi Carel<\/strong><\/a>, specialist nurse Ros Badman, and\u00a0general practitioner Dr John Jitan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Possible themes for papers<\/span><\/p>\n