Doctorats en histoire des sages-femmes en Belgique

PhD positions in the history of midwifery

Call for applications

 Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Antwerp. 

The PhD projects are part of a larger FWO-funded research project 'Midwifery roles and practices in Belgium and the Belgian Congo (1908-1960)', coordinated by Jolien Gijbels and Margot Luyckfasseel. The project as a whole aims to generate fresh insight into the continuing importance of midwives in reproductive care in Belgium and the Belgian Congo between 1908 and 1960. Although women across the globe handled the lion’s share of deliveries and combined different reproductive care roles far into the 20th century, a comprehensive history of their variety of practices and roles still needs to be written. To this end, the PhD researchers will collaborate closely with one another to develop a practice-oriented methodology that prioritizes source material offering insights into midwifery practices and the perspective of midwives, and to examine the mutual influences between Belgium and the Belgian Congo.

The PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel will work on the Belgian case and will be supervised by Jolien Gijbels, Margot Luyckfasseel and Margo De Koster. The PhD researcher at the University of Antwerp will focus on the Belgian Congo and will be supervised by Margot Luyckfasseel, Jolien Gijbels and Amandine Lauro.

 

Important dates:

·                Applications are open until June 1.

·                Interviews will be held on July 7.

·                The planned start date is November 1 or as soon as possible after that date.

 

Please feel free to share the two vacancies with interested candidates in your networks: https://shoc.research.vub.be/en/vacancy-doctoral-researcher-in-the-history-of-midwifery

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vacancies/academic-staff/?q=4373&descr=Doctoral-scholarship-holder-history

Sexe et médecine dans l'Empire ottoman tardif

Anatomy of Empire: Sex and Medicine in the Late Ottoman World 

Seçil Yılmaz 


Éditeur ‏ : ‎ Stanford University Press
Date de publication ‏ : ‎ 2 février 2026 
Édition ‏ : ‎ 1er
Langue ‏ : ‎ Anglais
Longueur d'impression ‏ : ‎ 288 pages 
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1503647770


Syphilis had existed in Ottoman society since the sixteenth century, but it became an alarming public health problem in the nineteenth century. As the epidemic raged with population movements across provincial and imperial borders, Ottoman authorities mobilized medical staff and implemented public hygiene regulations. Seçil Yılmaz unravels how a disease long associated with shame and secrecy became a key site through which Ottomans expanded their hegemony and governance, situating medicine and sex at the center of imperial rule.

Anatomy of Empire reveals the multifaceted implications of biopolitics found in the encounters and negotiations among the diseased, sex workers, working-class men, and physicians within a complex imperial bureaucracy. Medical knowledge and practices became effective tools to govern and discipline a population, particularly as Ottoman physicians formulated vernacular forms of sexology that re-fashioned love, desire, and marriage. As syphilis persisted across the world, Ottomans joined their European counterparts in pursuit of bacteriological discoveries to understand the causes behind the resilience of this silent yet destructive disease. With this book, Yılmaz offers a history of gender, sexuality, and medicine, one set in a consequential geography―in the lands of Ottomans at the verge of their demise―and unearths how truth regimes pertaining to the body and sexuality are indispensable components of modern imperial governance.

Pour une histoire du magnétisme animal au xixe siècle

Pour une histoire du magnétisme animal au xixe siècle. Harmonia Universalis – Du mouvement mesmérien à l’internationale magnétiste

Journée d'études


Jeudi 11 juin 2026, de 9 h à 18 h 30

Salle RdJ 2, centre Malher
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
9 rue Malher, Paris 4e

Journée d’études organisée par David Armando, Jean-Luc Chappey et Claire Gantet, dans le cadre du projet Harmonia Universalis, avec le soutien du Fonds national suisse pour la recherche scientifique


Programme

9 h | Accueil et Introduction
David Armando et Claire Gantet

9 h 15 | Les savants face au magnétisme animal : retour sur l’affaire Pigeaire (1838)
Bruno Belhoste

9 h 45 | Magnétisme et société du spectacle. Autour du parcours de Charles Lafontaine (mais pas que)
Jean-Luc Chappey

10 h 15 | Discussions et Pause

11 h | Jules Lovy (1801-1863) : un polymorphe au carrefour des écoles magnétistes
Anne Jeanson

11 h 30 | Performing Magnetism and the Theatrics of Persuasion : the Case of Prudence Bernard
Kurt Vanhoutte

12 h | Discussions

Pause déjeuner (12 h 30 – 14 h 30)

14 h 30 | Le magnétisme animal à l’épreuve des théories de la volonté au xixe siècle
Alessandra Aloisi

15 h | L’Exposé des cures… (1774-1826) de Simon Mialle et les sociabilités magnétiques
Isabelle Havelange

15 h 30 | Magnétiseurs et illusionnistes : Le somnambulisme magnétique à l’épreuve de la scène au xixe siècle
Thibaut Rioult

16 h | Discussions et Pause

16 h 45 | Table ronde « Nouveaux chantiers »

Autour des travaux de Giulia Abbadessa, de François-Joseph Favey, de Lisa Magnin et d’Olivier Verhaegen

18 h | Conclusions

Repenser l'histoire de la santé mentale depuis les suds

(Re)thinking the history of mental disorder and psychiatry: an approach through the South(s)
 

Medical History, Volume 70 - Special Issue 2 - Avril 2026



Introduction to the special issue: Global South histories of madness – new perspectives on mental troubles and psychiatry from Latin America and Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries
Irène Favier, Romain Tiquet


From the traditional account to an ‘off-centred history’ of the mental hygiene movement: the question of the international (1908–1939)
Hernán Scholten


Mental illness, forced labour, and colonial biopower in Kabba Province of Northern Nigeria, 1900–1947
Unekwu Friday Itodo


In defence of medical judgement: medicalisation strategies in the daily life of the Lima Asylum in the last third of the 19th century
Elias Amaya Nuñez


Sources of madness: investigating the post-colonial history of psychiatry in Niger
Gina Aïtmehdi, Camille Evrard


Disparate emotions? The play of emotions in clinical histories and patients’ letters (Pinel Sanatorium, SP/Brazil – 1929–1944)
Yonissa Marmitt Wadi


‘I cannot say that he is of unsound mind’: the case of Lunatic Richard Lea
Mishka Waza

Michael Servetus et la circulation du sang

Michael Servetus and the Circulation of Blood. The History of a Mistaken Idea


CSMBR Upcoming Lecture



Justo Hernandez

28 April 2026 – 5 PM (CET)



In 1628, Harvey's anatomical demonstration of the circulation of the blood opened a new path in the history of medicine. However, while this demonstration was groundbreaking, the concept of blood circulation had already been explored by numerous thinkers, ranging from Ibn al-Nafis to Realdo Colombo, Michael Servetus and Andrea Cesalpino.

While briefly touching on their individual merits, this lecture will focus specifically on the contribution of Michael Servetus (c. 1509–1553).

A Spanish theologian and physician, now mostly remembered for two things: being executed for anti-Trinitarian and Anabaptist heresy by the Genevans under Calvin, and publishing a work titled Christianismi Restitutio containing a description of blood passing through the lungs.

Published in early 1553, Servetus's Restitutio went unnoticed by medical scholars for well over a hundred years, until it was rediscovered in the eighteenth century by the French encyclopedists Diderot and D'Alembert, who credited Servetus with discovering the circulation of the blood before Harvey.

By examining Servetus's work, I will assert that this attribution was anachronistic and that his idea of circulation sought to resolve a theological rather than an anatomical dilemma: how the soul entered the body.



To register for this event, please click here.

Les histoires du cheveu

Global Histories of Hair, c.1500-2026

 

Call for papers 

 

An international, interdisciplinary conference, organised by the SNSF Starting Grant Team “Matter of Distinction: Early Modern Hair, Race, Trade, and Multispecies History” (Annika Bärwald, Laura Schleiss, Sarah-Maria Schober) at the University of Lucerne on October 8–10, 2026.

 The Deadline for submissions is May 15, 2026.

Hyper-present on almost all heads and bodies, hair is a forceful matter of difference. It signals gender, class, sometimes religion or politics – as well as racialised distinction. As such, hair connects and disconnects humans and other species across the globe and throughout history. The conference “Global Histories of Hair” aims to bring together researchers working on hair as a matter of distinction in the early modern and modern worlds.

 One temporal focus is on the period between approximately 1500 and 1850, encapsulating the European and colonial “age of the wig”. Alongside various types of animal hair reaching their position as “commodities of empire” during this time, human hair was cut, collected and traded over long distances to be used on other people’s heads. In this process, hair and hair practices became an ever-clearer marker of increasingly essentialised and naturalised difference.

 In a second step, the conference addresses the long-lasting hairy heritage of distinction making from 1500 to the present day. This includes the role of hair as human remains in anthropological collections as well as racialised regulations of hair or differences in hair care possibilities.

 Contributions might address, but are not limited to, the following areas and questions:

 Discourse, Knowledge, Practices:

•  What role did hair play in the so-called “contact zone”, where Europeans commented upon and categorised hair and hair practices of others, while also being observed and often humorously commented upon themselves (for example because of their wearing of wigs and powder)?

• What did hair practices in different parts of the world actually look like?
• How were grooming techniques or practices of covering hair described, categorised, and also, in some contexts, enforced?

 Materiality, Trade, Valuation:

•  What role did aspects of hair materiality, such as hair colour, hair texture, hair strength, hair abundance and loss, play in the global sphere? How did the strands of hair materiality, hair knowledge and hair practices entangle or disentangle?

• How was hair collected, traded, valued and used in different regions of the world?
• How did the trade, circulation and usage of hair bring people (and other beings) together and separate them? In what ways did the human hair trade differ from or coalesce with the trade in other fibres?
• How was hair conceptualised and used by people in different regions as a naturecultural material? How were aspects of malleability or essentialisation visualised or hidden, and for what purpose? How did hair contribute to understandings of the increasing separation of nature and culture, and both of these aspects’ respective roles in distinction making?

 Intersectionality:

•  How did ideas about racial, gender-based, religious or class-based hair differences affect people around the globe?

• What forms of expression, or even resistance, did hair care provide to people experiencing inequality and suppression?

 Heritage:

•  How have lasting hairy heritages affected people and their bodies around the globe since 1500?

• What attempts have been made to de-essentialise hair? What are ways of unmaking hair distinctions?

 Presentations are scheduled for 20 minutes, with ample time allocated for discussion. We invite researchers from all relevant fields, such as history, art history, anthropology as well as museum and collection professionals and archivists. Early-career scholars are strongly encouraged to apply. The conference will take place in Lucerne, Switzerland. Travel, accommodation and visa costs will be covered, and organisational assistance will be provided. Hybrid attendance is possible. The conference language is English.

Please submit an abstract (c. 250 words) and a short biography (c. 100 words). The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2026.

Contact: svenja.furger@unilu.ch

Travailler à l'hôpital la nuit

Working in the hospital at night, past and present 

Call for papers 

 

7th International Conference on Night Studies (online 7-9 october 2026) 

Co-Convenors: Sophie Panziera (EHESS- Centre Alexandre Koyré) and Kristin Hussey (Newcastle University)

Night-time within the hospital is a unique and often paradoxical context. In both general and psychiatric hospitals, the night can be peaceful a time of sleep and rest for patients and staff alike. But it can also be active and dangerous – a time for admissions, emergencies, accidents and deaths.

The night-time atmosphere in hospitals reflects this particularity and affects sensory perceptions (perceptions of sounds in relative silence, alternating between rooms that are lit, dimly lit or plunged into obscurity, etc.). The organisation of night-time hospital care must therefore respond to a paradox: conditions must allow patients to sleep, while the hospital must remain operational and the healthcare staff must stay vigilant. Working overnight challenges the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of hospital staff – who grapple with fatigue while often making life and death decisions. At the same time, the nighttime hospital can be a space of relative freedom – for rest, reflection and connection between patients and staff. The transition between day and night, and the kinds of care delivered in these different periods, has been and is today, subject to intense administrative management and supervision. In this panel, we want to ask – how is the night time hospital navigated and experienced by hospital staff, past and present?

As part of the 7th International Conference on Night Studies, which will be held online from 7 to 9 October 2026, we would like to propose an interdisciplinary panel that examines this specific space-time of the night from the perspective of hospital staff. We invite papers which interrogate the specific atmospheres, sensations, emotions, structures and practices of the hospital by night in any period or geographical location. We hope papers in this panel will contribute to an exploration of the unique characteristics of the nighttime hospital and the ways that staff (broadly defined) manage this context.

Proposals may cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

– Night-time organisation of the hospital (history of night-time emergency services, night-time administration)

– Sociology and history of night-time staff (gender, career paths, professional issues, etc.)

– Night-time knowledge: does night-time work in hospitals require specific knowledge and skills?

– The experience of night work in hospitals/night-time working conditions in hospitals

– Social and professional representations of night-time hospital staff (heroes or lazy?)

– Literary and cultural representations of the night shift in the hospital

– Night-time atmosphere and sensitivities in hospitals (anxiety, rumours or beliefs, altered perceptions, ghost stories)

We invite interested people to send their proposals for papers to sophie.panziera@ehess.fr by 28 April at the latest. Abstracts (250-300 words) and papers (15 min + discussions) will have to be in English. 

Nommer la pathologie

Naming Pathology from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period

Alessandra Foscati, Michèle Goyens (eds)


Pages: 273 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm
Illustrations:4 tables b/w.
Language(s):English, Greek, Latin
Publication Year:2026

This collection of contributions from international scholars offers a cross-language and multi-period analysis dedicated to the constitution of the lexicon of pathology between Antiquity and the Early Modern period. By analysing unpublished texts and studying sources written in different languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic and different vernaculars), the authors demonstrate that the pathological terminology of the past did not have an unambiguous meaning and therefore, to be understood, must be historicized and evaluated according to sources and context. The volume offers the reader the possibility of observing continuity and change in the perception, representation and theoretic paradigm of the disease lexicon, in a wide range of cultural contexts.