Bodily Fluids/Fluid Bodies in Greek and Roman Antiquity
Conference
11-13 July 2016
St Michael’s College
Cardiff University.
Monday 11th July
10.30-11.00 Registration
11.00-12.00 Keynote Address Helen King (Open University)
Opening the body of fluids: taking in and pouring out in Renaissance readings of classical women
12.00-1.00 Lunch
First Panel: Blood for the gods and godly fluids
1.30-2.00 Emily Kearns (St Hilda’s College, Oxford)
A natural symbol? The (un)importance of blood in early Greek religious and literary contexts
2.00-2.30 Deborah Lyons (Miami University)
Intimations of mortality: divine fluids and the limits of divinity
2.30-3.00 Rosie Jackson (University of Manchester)
Martyrdom reconfigured: menstruating virgins and sacrificial blood
3.00-3.30 Anastasia Stylianou (University of Warwick)
“Blood of his dear saints (like good seed) never falleth in vain to the ground”: the influence of Classical medical thought and early Christian beliefs upon medieval and early-modern constructions of martyrs’ blood
3.30-4.00 Tea
Second Panel: Tears and other eye liquids
4.00-4.30 Julie Laskaris (University of Richmond)
The eyes have it all
4.30-5.00 Peter Kelly (NUI Galway)
Tears and liquefaction: corporeal permeability in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
5.00-5.30 Laura Mareri (University of Macerata, Italy)
Crying in Byzantium: tears as symptoms and healers
5.30-5.45 Short break
Third Panel: Fluid sympatheia
5.45-6.15 Michael Goyette (Brooklyn College)
Sympathetic fluidity: somatic, emotional, and cosmic flux in Senecan tragedy
6.15-6.45 Heather Hunter-Crawley (Swansea University)
Sense and sympatheia: modelling the fluidity of bodies in Roman domestic religion
7.30 Dinner in local restaurant (or free choice)
Tuesday 12th July
First Panel: Sweat
9.30-10.00 Mark Bradley (University of Nottingham)
Sweating like a Roman: perspiration, essence and goatiness from Republic to Empire
10.00-10.30 Jane Burkowski (Oriel College, Oxford)
Scent of a puella: perfume, sweat, and the real in Latin love elegy and Ovid’s didactic works
10.30-11.00 Colin Webster (UC Davis)
Why don’t we sweat when we hold our breath? Paradoxes of perspiration in ancient Greek medicine
11.00-11.30 Coffee
Second Panel: Menses
11.30-12.00 Rosalind Janssen (University College London)
A valid excuse for a day-off work: menstruation in an ancient Egyptian village
12.00-12.30 Irene Salvo (University of Göttingen)
Menstrual blood: what Athenian women knew
12.30-1.00 Caroline Spearing (King’s College London)
The menstruation debate in book 2 of Abraham Cowley’s Plantarum Libri Sex (1662 and 1668)
1.00-2.30 Lunch
Third Panel: Dissolving bodies and tragic fluids
2.30-3.00 Tasha Dobbin-Bennett (Emory University)
‘Efflux is my manifestation’: ancient Egyptian conceptions of putrefactive fluids
3.00-3.30 Christiaan Caspers (Murmellius Gymnasium, The Netherlands)
Heated bodies, melting selves: dissolving personhood in classical Greek poetry
3.30-4.00 Goran Vidovic (Cornell University)
Physiology of matricide: revenge and metabolism in Aeschylus’ Choephoroe
4.00-4.30 Tea
Fourth Panel: Erotic Fluids
4.30-5.00 Emilio Capettini (Princeton University)
Blush, (internal) sweat, and tear in Chariton’s Chaeras and Callirhoe
5.00-5.30 Catalina Popescu (Texas Tech University)
A Pandora of ivory: the pure humours of an erotic surrogate
5.30-6.00 Blossom Stefaniw (Gutenberg Universität Mainz)
Maleness without members: ominous fluids and passionate flux in the historia lausiaca
7.00 Wine Reception
7.30 Conference Dinner
Wednesday 13th July
9.00-10.00 Keynote Address Rebecca Flemming (Jesus College, Cambridge)
One-seed, two-seed, three-seed? Reassessing ancient theories of generation
10.00-10.30 – Break
First Panel: Semen and female fluids
10.30-11.00 Rebecca Fallas (Open University)
‘Infertile’ and ‘sub-fertile’ semen in the ancient medical texts
11.00-11.30 Tara Mulder (Wheaton College)
Wetness, foetal sex, and female bodies
11.30-12.00 Dawn Lavalle (Magdalen College, Oxford)
Adam’s semen as ‘liquid bone’ in Methodius of Olympius’ Symposium
12.00-12.30 Thea Lawrence (University of Notthingham)
Utilissimum cuique lac maternum: breastmilk, breastfeeding and the female body in early imperial Rome
12.30-1.30 Lunch
Second Panel: Wounds and morbid fluids
1.30-2.00 Assaf Krebs (Tel Aviv University)
Open and Close: wounds, skin and the corporeal envelope
2.00-2.30 Susanne Turner (University of Cambridge)
Blood, wounds and the impenetrability of the classical body
2.30-3.00 Calloway Brewster-Scott (New York University)
Fluid proofs: dropsical bodies in the Hippocratic Corpus
3.00-3.30 Leyla Ozbek (University of Cambridge)
Medical erudition and literary pathos: bodily fluids in Quintus Smyraneus’ Posthomerica
3.30-4.00 Tea
Fourth Panel: Comical and satirical bodies
4.00-4.30 Amy Coker (University of Manchester)
Fluid vocabulary: the Greek lexicon of bodily effluvia (or did the Greeks have a word for ‘spunk’?)
4.30-5.00 Andreas Gavrielatos (University of Edinburgh)
Bodily fluids in Persius’ Satires
5.00-5.30 Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet (University of Lausanne)
Satirical fluids and the couple: the role of bile, urine, sweat, sperm, milk and tears in Juvenalian conjugal relationships
End of conference, dinner in local restaurant
jeudi 23 juin 2016
mercredi 22 juin 2016
Histoire de l'épuisement
Exhaustion: A History
Anna K. Schaffner
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (June 21, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0231172301
Anna K. Schaffner
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (June 21, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0231172301
Today our fatigue feels chronic; our anxieties, amplified. Proliferating technologies command our attention. Many people complain of burnout, and economic instability and the threat of ecological catastrophe fill us with dread. We look to the past, imagining life to have once been simpler and slower, but extreme mental and physical stress is not a modern syndrome. Beginning in classical antiquity, this book demonstrates how exhaustion has always been with us and helps us evaluate more critically the narratives we tell ourselves about the phenomenon.
Medical, cultural, literary, and biographical sources have cast exhaustion as a biochemical imbalance, a somatic ailment, a viral disease, and a spiritual failing. It has been linked to loss, the alignment of the planets, a perverse desire for death, and social and economic disruption. Pathologized, demonized, sexualized, and even weaponized, exhaustion unites the mind with the body and society in such a way that we attach larger questions of agency, willpower, and well-being to its symptoms. Mapping these political, ideological, and creative currents across centuries of human development, Exhaustion finds in our struggle to overcome weariness a more significant effort to master ourselves.
Postes de recherche en histoire et en philosophie de la biologie
Two Research Associate Positions: One in History of Biology and One in Philosophy of Biology
Call for applications
University of Cambridge
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Salary: £28,982-£37,768p.a., depending on experience
2-year Limit of Tenure applies
Call for applications
University of Cambridge
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Salary: £28,982-£37,768p.a., depending on experience
2-year Limit of Tenure applies
The Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, seeks to appoint two post-doctoral Research Associates, one in history of biology and one in philosophy of biology, to contribute to the multi-centre project ‘Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test’, which is contextualizing, clarifying and evaluating recent calls for extensions to the ‘Modern Synthesis’ in evolutionary biology.
These Cambridge-based sub-projects will address historical and philosophical concerns. The early years of the Modern Synthesis have been studied in some detail, and yet its identity and effects are controversial and a series of historical questions about its subsequent development remain open, especially for the 1960s to 1990s. A fuller historical account of the nature and legacy of the Modern Synthesis will deepen our understanding of the diverse reactions to attempts to extend that synthesis. The philosophy of science will contribute by providing a thorough analysis of the general meaning of the ‘Extended Synthesis’ itself—whether it offers a new set of theories, a change of emphases, or something else altogether—in addition to clarification and evaluation of the some of the key concepts developed by its advocates. These include the concepts of niche-construction, niche inheritance and reciprocal causation.
The successful candidates will work full-time on this project, each producing at least three research papers over the tenure of their position. They will also be expected to contribute to the project in other ways, including liaising with project workers in other centres, participating in project seminars and workshops, helping to organize workshops, and contributing to the project website. The successful candidates will have the ability to work reliably and efficiently to deadlines and targets. They will be mentored by members of the Cambridge HPS team, which includes Professor Tim Lewens, Dr Nick Hopwood and Dr Marta Halina. They will also have the opportunity to collaborate with members of the Cambridge Zoology Department team, led by Professors Rufus Johnstone and Paul Brakefield, as well as with the large international network of researchers involved in this £5.7 million, multi-centre grant funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Candidates should have:
An outstanding record in either the philosophy of biology or the history of biology
An excellent knowledge of diverse approaches to evolution, either from a historical or philosophical perspective
Completed their doctorate by the time of taking up the appointment.
To apply online for these vacancies please visit: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10521/ (Research Associate: History of Biology); http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10533/ (Research Associate: Philosophy of Biology) This will take you to the University’s Job Opportunities pages.
There you will need to click on the 'Apply online' button and register an account with the University's Web Recruitment System (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form. Applicants are able to upload a maximum of three documents.
These should be arranged as follows:
1.) Cover letter, an up to date curriculum vitae and full list of publications combined into one document
2.) Two samples of original written work in a related area (c. 10,000 words in total)
3.) A description of your research plans and an explanation of how your research will contribute to the project. This should not exceed 1,000 words
Closing Date: 1 July 2016
Interview Date: around mid-July 2016
Start Date: 1 October 2016 (or as soon as possible thereafter)
Please provide the names and contact details of two referees in the space provided. We will contact the referees of shortlisted candidates directly to request references (unless you advise that you do not wish us to do so). Referees will be asked to comment specifically on the candidate's ability to undertake this role in the Department.
If you are unable to upload your documents, please email these as attachments to hpsjobs@hermes.cam.ac.uk, ensuring that you include your surname in the email subject line and in the file names.
Any further queries regarding this position can be addressed to the Administrator at hpsjobs@hermes.cam.ac.uk. Please quote reference JN09263 for Research Associate: History of Biology and JN09273 for Research Associate: Philosophy of Biology on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
These Cambridge-based sub-projects will address historical and philosophical concerns. The early years of the Modern Synthesis have been studied in some detail, and yet its identity and effects are controversial and a series of historical questions about its subsequent development remain open, especially for the 1960s to 1990s. A fuller historical account of the nature and legacy of the Modern Synthesis will deepen our understanding of the diverse reactions to attempts to extend that synthesis. The philosophy of science will contribute by providing a thorough analysis of the general meaning of the ‘Extended Synthesis’ itself—whether it offers a new set of theories, a change of emphases, or something else altogether—in addition to clarification and evaluation of the some of the key concepts developed by its advocates. These include the concepts of niche-construction, niche inheritance and reciprocal causation.
The successful candidates will work full-time on this project, each producing at least three research papers over the tenure of their position. They will also be expected to contribute to the project in other ways, including liaising with project workers in other centres, participating in project seminars and workshops, helping to organize workshops, and contributing to the project website. The successful candidates will have the ability to work reliably and efficiently to deadlines and targets. They will be mentored by members of the Cambridge HPS team, which includes Professor Tim Lewens, Dr Nick Hopwood and Dr Marta Halina. They will also have the opportunity to collaborate with members of the Cambridge Zoology Department team, led by Professors Rufus Johnstone and Paul Brakefield, as well as with the large international network of researchers involved in this £5.7 million, multi-centre grant funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Candidates should have:
An outstanding record in either the philosophy of biology or the history of biology
An excellent knowledge of diverse approaches to evolution, either from a historical or philosophical perspective
Completed their doctorate by the time of taking up the appointment.
To apply online for these vacancies please visit: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10521/ (Research Associate: History of Biology); http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/10533/ (Research Associate: Philosophy of Biology) This will take you to the University’s Job Opportunities pages.
There you will need to click on the 'Apply online' button and register an account with the University's Web Recruitment System (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form. Applicants are able to upload a maximum of three documents.
These should be arranged as follows:
1.) Cover letter, an up to date curriculum vitae and full list of publications combined into one document
2.) Two samples of original written work in a related area (c. 10,000 words in total)
3.) A description of your research plans and an explanation of how your research will contribute to the project. This should not exceed 1,000 words
Closing Date: 1 July 2016
Interview Date: around mid-July 2016
Start Date: 1 October 2016 (or as soon as possible thereafter)
Please provide the names and contact details of two referees in the space provided. We will contact the referees of shortlisted candidates directly to request references (unless you advise that you do not wish us to do so). Referees will be asked to comment specifically on the candidate's ability to undertake this role in the Department.
If you are unable to upload your documents, please email these as attachments to hpsjobs@hermes.cam.ac.uk, ensuring that you include your surname in the email subject line and in the file names.
Any further queries regarding this position can be addressed to the Administrator at hpsjobs@hermes.cam.ac.uk. Please quote reference JN09263 for Research Associate: History of Biology and JN09273 for Research Associate: Philosophy of Biology on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
mardi 21 juin 2016
La fabrication de la santé publique en Angleterre
Governing Systems: Modernity and the Making of Public Health in England, 1830-1910
Tom Crook
Series: Berkeley Series in British Studies (Book 11)
Hardcover: 408 pages
Publisher: University of California Press (June 21, 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-0520290341
When and how did public health become modern? In Governing Systems, Tom Crook offers a fresh answer to this question through an examination of Victorian and Edwardian England, long considered one of the critical birthplaces of modern public health. This birth, Crook argues, should be located not in the rise of professional expertise or a centralized bureacratic state, but in the contested formation and functioning of multiple systems, both human and material, administrative and technological. Theoretically ambitious but empirically grounded, Governing Systems will be of interest to historians of modern public health and modern Britain, as well as to anyone interested in the complex gestation of the governmental dimensions of modernity.
Tom Crook
Series: Berkeley Series in British Studies (Book 11)
Hardcover: 408 pages
Publisher: University of California Press (June 21, 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-0520290341
When and how did public health become modern? In Governing Systems, Tom Crook offers a fresh answer to this question through an examination of Victorian and Edwardian England, long considered one of the critical birthplaces of modern public health. This birth, Crook argues, should be located not in the rise of professional expertise or a centralized bureacratic state, but in the contested formation and functioning of multiple systems, both human and material, administrative and technological. Theoretically ambitious but empirically grounded, Governing Systems will be of interest to historians of modern public health and modern Britain, as well as to anyone interested in the complex gestation of the governmental dimensions of modernity.
Alchimie et médecine universelle
Alchemy, Universal Medicine, and Prolongation of Life
Workshop
Oxford, 4 July 2016
8:30-9:00 Attendee Registration and Welcome
Workshop
Oxford, 4 July 2016
8:30-9:00 Attendee Registration and Welcome
9:00-10:30 –The Promise of Medical Alchemy in the German Lands
Chair: Tara Nummedal (Brown)
Tillmann Taape (Cambridge): ‘The Concept of Distillation in Alchemical Medicine and its Reception in Vernacular Print in the Early Modern German Lands’
Joel Klein (Columbia), ‘Potable Gold: Sources of Skepticism and Belief’
11:00-12:30 Analogy and Metaphor in Alchemical Medicine
Natalie Kaoukji (Cambridge), ‘The Opposite of a Secret: Knowledge, Practice and the Prolongation of Life’
12.30-13.30 Lunch Break (included)
13:30-15:00 Early Paracelsianism
Chair: Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton)
Didier Kahn (Paris): ‘The Apocalypsis spiritus secreti and the Rupescissan Quintessence’
Peter J. Forshaw (Amsterdam), ‘Paracelsus’s De Vita Longa and its Paracelsian Afterlife’
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-17:00 Reforming Universal Medicine: Sendivogius and Van Helmont
Chair: Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck)
Rafał T. Prinke (Poznań), ‘One Only Drop of That Latex…’: Michael Sendivogius as an Alchemical Physician’
Georgiana D. Hedesan (Oxford), ‘Making Sense of Van Helmont’s Universal Medicines’
17:00-17:15 Break
17:15-18:45 Framing the Discourse of Universal Medicine
Chair: Georgiana D. Hedesan (Oxford)
Hiro Hirai (Nijmegen), ‘Early Seventeenth-Century Paracelsians on God, Creation and Universal Medicine’
Bruce T. Moran (Nevada Reno), ‘Particles and the Panacea: Alchemical Cosmology, Ancient Knowledge, and the Catholica Medicamenta of Edmund Dickinson’
18:45-19:00 Conclusions and Publication Plan
19:00-19:10 Book Launch (Georgiana Hedesan)
19:10-19:45 Drinks Receptio
Tillmann Taape (Cambridge): ‘The Concept of Distillation in Alchemical Medicine and its Reception in Vernacular Print in the Early Modern German Lands’
Joel Klein (Columbia), ‘Potable Gold: Sources of Skepticism and Belief’
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Analogy and Metaphor in Alchemical Medicine
Chair: Lauren Kassell (Cambridge)
Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton): ‘Healing by Analogy in Late Medieval Alchemy’
Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton): ‘Healing by Analogy in Late Medieval Alchemy’
Natalie Kaoukji (Cambridge), ‘The Opposite of a Secret: Knowledge, Practice and the Prolongation of Life’
12.30-13.30 Lunch Break (included)
13:30-15:00 Early Paracelsianism
Chair: Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton)
Didier Kahn (Paris): ‘The Apocalypsis spiritus secreti and the Rupescissan Quintessence’
Peter J. Forshaw (Amsterdam), ‘Paracelsus’s De Vita Longa and its Paracelsian Afterlife’
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-17:00 Reforming Universal Medicine: Sendivogius and Van Helmont
Chair: Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck)
Rafał T. Prinke (Poznań), ‘One Only Drop of That Latex…’: Michael Sendivogius as an Alchemical Physician’
Georgiana D. Hedesan (Oxford), ‘Making Sense of Van Helmont’s Universal Medicines’
17:00-17:15 Break
17:15-18:45 Framing the Discourse of Universal Medicine
Chair: Georgiana D. Hedesan (Oxford)
Hiro Hirai (Nijmegen), ‘Early Seventeenth-Century Paracelsians on God, Creation and Universal Medicine’
Bruce T. Moran (Nevada Reno), ‘Particles and the Panacea: Alchemical Cosmology, Ancient Knowledge, and the Catholica Medicamenta of Edmund Dickinson’
18:45-19:00 Conclusions and Publication Plan
19:00-19:10 Book Launch (Georgiana Hedesan)
19:10-19:45 Drinks Receptio
lundi 20 juin 2016
Le corps humain dans les textes et images asiatiques
The Human Body in Asian Texts and Images
Curare 39 (2016) 1
(Zeitschrift für Medizinethnologie / Journal of Medical Anthropology)
Guest Editor: Katharina Sabernig
Klaus-Dieter Mathes: Preface
Katharina Sabernig: Editorial
Articles
Natalia Bolsokhoeva: Tibetan Medical Illustrations from Atsagat Medical College and Other Anatomical Achievements of the Buryat Lama and Physician D. Endonov
Katharina Sabernig: Anatomical Structures and the Structure of Anatomy in Tibetan Medicine. The Fourth Chapter of the Explanatory Tantra in its Commentaries
Florian Ploberger: Anatomical Terms of the 27 Chapters of the Subsequent Tantra (Phyi mavi rgyud)
Isabella Würthner: A Preliminary Study on the Function, Anatomy and Origin of the Term bsam-sevu in Tibetan Medical Literature
Rudolf Pfister: On the Meditative Use of the Body Maps Found in the Composite Text "Songs of the Bodily Husk" (Ti ke ge)
Wung Seok Cha & Hyuk Sang Jung [with assistance of Dong Ryul Kim, You Sang Baik & Tae Woo Kim]: Body Perceptions in East Asian Culture
Bibliographical Survey
Michael Balk: A Bibliographical Survey of Medical Literature in Tibetan language Based on the Post-war Holdings of the State Library in Berlin: A Strand of Pearls to Enlighten Researchers
Report
Stephan Kloos: Tibetan Medicine Committee Inaugural Conference. World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, Xining, Qinghai (China), August 7–9, 2015
Book Reviews
Theresia Hofer (Ed) 2014. Bodies in Balance. The Art of Tibetan Medicine. New York [Vincanne Adams]
Janet Gyatso. 2015. Being Human in a Buddhist World. New York. [Theresia Hofer]
Curare 39 (2016) 1
(Zeitschrift für Medizinethnologie / Journal of Medical Anthropology)
Guest Editor: Katharina Sabernig
Klaus-Dieter Mathes: Preface
Katharina Sabernig: Editorial
Articles
Natalia Bolsokhoeva: Tibetan Medical Illustrations from Atsagat Medical College and Other Anatomical Achievements of the Buryat Lama and Physician D. Endonov
Katharina Sabernig: Anatomical Structures and the Structure of Anatomy in Tibetan Medicine. The Fourth Chapter of the Explanatory Tantra in its Commentaries
Florian Ploberger: Anatomical Terms of the 27 Chapters of the Subsequent Tantra (Phyi mavi rgyud)
Isabella Würthner: A Preliminary Study on the Function, Anatomy and Origin of the Term bsam-sevu in Tibetan Medical Literature
Rudolf Pfister: On the Meditative Use of the Body Maps Found in the Composite Text "Songs of the Bodily Husk" (Ti ke ge)
Wung Seok Cha & Hyuk Sang Jung [with assistance of Dong Ryul Kim, You Sang Baik & Tae Woo Kim]: Body Perceptions in East Asian Culture
Bibliographical Survey
Michael Balk: A Bibliographical Survey of Medical Literature in Tibetan language Based on the Post-war Holdings of the State Library in Berlin: A Strand of Pearls to Enlighten Researchers
Report
Stephan Kloos: Tibetan Medicine Committee Inaugural Conference. World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, Xining, Qinghai (China), August 7–9, 2015
Book Reviews
Theresia Hofer (Ed) 2014. Bodies in Balance. The Art of Tibetan Medicine. New York [Vincanne Adams]
Janet Gyatso. 2015. Being Human in a Buddhist World. New York. [Theresia Hofer]
Les histoires de la biodiversité
Biodiversity and its Histories
Call for Papers
March 24-25, 2017,
University of Cambridge
Centre for
Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
The concept of ‘biodiversity’ has become one of the most
crucial and complex terms in the environmental sciences. Central to the
disciplines of conservation biology and environmental ethics, biodiversity
operates as both fact and value in wider public debates about the preservation
of species and habitats from human influence, exploitation, and destruction.
Although the origins of the concept and its recent history are relatively well
known, its relationship to earlier traditions and discourses is less well
charted. We seek to understand how aesthetic, economic, and moral value came to
be attached to the diversity of life on earth.
The conference will bring together scholars and
researchers in ecology, biology, geography, anthropology, cultural history, and
history and philosophy of science. We will draw on what is already a rich body
of historical research on hybridity and exchange, habitat and distribution,
civilization and extinction from the eighteenth century onwards, and will seek
to broaden and deepen this genealogy.
By exploring the concept of 'diversity' as applied to
'life' from this broad perspective, the conference aims to bring renewed attention
to a powerful contemporary concept whose historical and disciplinary richness
has yet to be fully explored and exploited. This is especially important at a
moment when political debates threaten to eliminate the rich valences and
values attached to biological diversity by substituting strictly instrumental
calculations and more anthropocentric evaluations such as ‘ecosystem services’.
Contributions will address themes and topics such as:
• The diversity
of life as an object of scientific knowledge from the
eighteenth century to the present, including material
practices of collecting, the fixing and measurement of diversity, and visual
cultures and modelling of diversity
• The place of
diversity, variation, and divergence in biological
theorizing, especially evolutionary theories
• The role of
variety and the exotic in natural theology, aesthetics,
and commerce
• Multiculturalism
and ideas of biocultural diversity, including efforts
to protect and preserve such diversity
• Diversity
within organisms or individuals, as in cases of hybridity or
mixed ancestry
• The politics
and ethics of biological diversity, including
conservation efforts, bioprospecting/biopiracy debates,
and international legal regimes
Conference organizers: Helen Anne Curry, Paul White
Conference participants will receive accommodation and
limited funding for travel expenses.
Please send short abstracts (no more than 300 words) to psw24@cam.ac.uk
Deadline for submission: 1 September 2016
Participants will be notified by 30 September 2016
dimanche 19 juin 2016
La peinture comme médecine dans la Rome pré-moderne
Painting as Medicine in Early Modern Rome: Giulio Mancini and the Efficacy of Art Frances Gage
Hardcover: 248 pages
Publisher: Penn State University Press; Sew edition (June 17, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0271071039
In Painting as Medicine in Early Modern Rome, Frances Gage undertakes an in-depth study of the writings of the physician and art critic Giulio Mancini. Using Mancini’s unpublished treatises as well as contemporary documents, Gage demonstrates that in the early modern world, belief in the transformational power of images was not limited to cult images, as has often been assumed, but applied to secular ones as well.
This important new interpretation of the value of images and the motivations underlying the rise of private art collections in the early modern period challenges purely economic or status-based explanations. Gage demonstrates that paintings were understood to have profound effects on the minds, imaginations, and bodies of viewers. Indeed, paintings were believed to affect the health and emotional balance of beholders—extending even to the look and disposition of their offspring—and to compel them to behave according to civic and moral values.
In using medical discourse as an analytical tool to help elucidate the meaning that collectors and viewers attributed to specific genres of painting, Gage shows that images truly informed actions, shaping everyday rituals from reproductive practices to exercise. In doing so, she concludes that sharp distinctions between an artwork’s aesthetic value and its utility did not apply in the early modern period.
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