En vacances

 

 Le blog Historiens de la santé prend quelques semaines de vacances.

Il sera de retour le 17 août.

Très bel été à tous !

Oeuvres d'Arnaud de Villeneuve

Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia XIV

ed. and intro. Michael R McVaugh

Barcelona: Fundació Noguera/
Universitat de Barcelona, 2014
ISBN 978-84-9975-568-7

This latest volume to be published in the collected medical writings of Arnau de Vilanova provides editions, with introductions and indexes to words and sources, to his two surviving commentaries on individual Hippocratic aphorisms (unlike some of his Montpellier contemporaries, he seems not to have produced a commentary or set of questiones on the Aphorisms as a whole) . His commentary on “In morbis minus” (Aph. II.34), composed in the mid-1290s, was apparently driven by an early belief that the aphorism encapsulated a general rule for an aspect of medical practice; the text does not survive in manuscript and is edited here from its Renaissance editions. The accompanying edition of his commentary on “Vita brevis” (Aph. I.1), which he finished in 1301, uses manuscript sources to correct the text given in the various sixteenth-century collections of his Opera, which scholars until now have automatically used without recognizing that a fifth of Arnau’s original had been intentionally discarded by a later bored scribe, and another ten percent replaced by a very long passage from Avicenna’s Metaphysics! The restored complete text is of great interest, especially for Arnau’s detailed, almost step-by-step account of how a physician should deal with a new patient, moving through the stages of diagnosis to those of therapeutic prescription (he was delivering the commentary, of course, to his students at Montpellier). And it shows, too, how his conviction that general rules were possible in medicine had weakened since he had prepared his commentary on II.34, and that he had come to realize that the contingent factors which make each case an individual one were of equally great importance to a physician.

Poste d'enseignement en histoire de la médecine

Teaching Fellow in the History of Medicine

Call for applications

University of Warwick - History

Location: Coventry

Salary: £28,695 to £37,394 per annum

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Contract / Temporary

Placed on: 24th July 2015

Closes: 17th August 2015

Job Ref: 1482967

Fixed term contract for 10 months.

The Department of History seeks to appoint a full-time Teaching Fellow in the History of Medicine. You will take seminars on the first-year undergraduate module ‘Making of the Modern World’ and you will convene, taking lectures and seminars, the second-year undergraduate module ‘From Cradle to Grave: Health, Medicine & Society in Modern Britain’, for a total of eight seminar groups of approximately fourteen students per group. You will also teach occasional lectures for other undergraduate modules as required by the Head of Department and as appropriate to subject knowledge.

You will undertake lecturing, seminar teaching, essay tutorials, office hours, marking of undergraduate work, exam invigilation, and monitoring of student attendance in accordance with the Department’s quality assurance practices. You will also act as personal tutor to an assigned group of undergraduate students, providing pastoral support and guidance during the academic year. You will be actively engaged in research in the History of Medicine, or a comparable field.

You will possess experience in undergraduate teaching and subject specialism appropriate for research-led teaching in the History of Medicine. You should also possess a PhD (or equivalent) in History.

All applications must be accompanied by a CV and covering letter. Writing samples may be requested from candidates during the latter stages of the recruitment process and should not be submitted with the initial application.

Please direct all informal inquiries to Mr Robert Horton, the History Department Administrator, at R.S.Horton@warwick.ac.uk.

Les normes médicales

Norm als Zwang, Pflicht und Traum: Normierende versus individualisierende Bestrebungen in der Medizin

Eva Brinkschulte, Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio (Editors)

Series: Medizingeschichte im Kontext (Book 19)
Hardcover: 212 pages
Publisher: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften (June 30, 2015)
Language: German
ISBN-13: 978-3631660645

Erklärte Ziele der Medizin sind Wiederherstellung, Erhaltung sowie Förderung der psychischen und physischen Gesundheit. Dabei wird in der alltäglichen Praxis oft die Grenzziehung zwischen dem «Normalen» und dem «Pathologischen» unreflektiert vorgenommen. Der Band ist der interdisziplinären Aufarbeitung von medizinischen Normierungsdiskursen und -praktiken vom 19. bis 21. Jahrhundert gewidmet. In den Beiträgen werden die Bestrebungen, normale bzw. durchschnittliche medizinische Werte zu definieren, ausgelotet: Von der gesundheitspolitischen Normierung der Gesundheit bis zu den Visionen einer anzustrebenden gesunden «Normalität», deren Grenzen heute durch die Optimierungspraktiken der wunscherfüllenden Medizin verwischt sind.

Histoire et cultures de l'alimentation

Deuxième Conférence Internationale d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation

Appel à communications et à sessions


26-27 mai 2016 – Tours (France)

L’Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation (IEHCA) organisera les jeudi 26 et vendredi 27 mai 2016 à Tours (France) la seconde édition de sa désormais annuelle Conférence Internationale.

Cette manifestation s’inscrit dans le prolongement des actions que mène l’IEHCA depuis douze ans à travers sa politique éditoriale, son soutien à la recherche et son travail de mise en réseau des chercheurs en Food Studies.

Le succès de l’année précédente où près de 120 chercheurs ont été réunis, nous a conforté dans notre volonté de pérenniser cette manifestation et d’en faire un rendez-vous de référence, organisé en partenariat avec l’Equipe Alimentation de l’université François-Rabelais de Tours et la Chaire UNESCO « Sauvegarde et Valorisation des Patrimoines Alimentaires » (Université de Tours).

Toutes les propositions relevant des Food Studies seront examinées et tous les chercheurs seront les bienvenus (doctorants, post-doctorants, enseignants-chercheurs, chercheurs indépendants...). Ce symposium est par essence pluri- et transdisciplinaire et couvrira l’ensemble des périodes historiques.

Contrairement à l’année précédente, le présent appel consiste en priorité en un appel à sessions, seront donc d’abord examinés et retenus les candidatures portant sur l’organisation de panels thématiques. Les candidatures individuelles ne seront examinées que dans un second temps.

Chaque session devra durer 1H30. Elle comportera un modérateur et de deux à quatre communicants. Idéalement trois (avec, dans ce cas, des communications d’une durée de vingt minutes).

Les candidatures devront être en français ou en anglais et mentionner :

· le thème général de la session

· le nom du modérateur et des communicants,

· Bref CV (250 mots) de tous les participants de la session

· leur(s) institution(s) de rattachement (si nécessaire),

· le titre de leur intervention

· leurs coordonnées

· un résumé de 250 mots pour chaque communication

Le chercheur soumettant la proposition de session pourra en être le modérateur. S’il est au nombre des communicants, il lui revient de trouver un modérateur ou, à défaut, un modérateur sera attribué par les organisateurs.

Les éventuelles candidatures individuelles devront être présentées comme suit :

· Titre de la communication

· Un résumé de la communication (250 mots)

· Un bref CV (250 mots)

· Institution de rattachement (si nécessaire) et coordonnées

Les candidatures seront examinées et sélectionnées par le comité scientifique de l’IEHCA.

Les communications pourront être présentées en anglais ou en français.

La date limite d’envoi des candidatures est fixée au 30 octobre 2015.

Les réponses vous parviendront aux alentours du 15 janvier 2016.

Elles sont à adresser, ainsi que vos questions, à Loïc Bienassis et Allen Grieco :

loic.bienassis@iehca.eu ; agrieco@itatti.harvard.edu

IMPORTANT : aucun frais d’inscription n’est demandé mais aucun défraiement n’est prévu pour les participants à la conférence.

Organisation scientifique :

IEHCA (Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation, Tours)

LÉA (L’Équipe Alimentation, Université François-Rabelais (Tours), EA 6294)

Chaire UNESCO Sauvegarde et Valorisation des Patrimoines Alimentaires (Université François-Rabelais (Tours)

La connaissance de la reproduction dans l'Angleterre pré-moderne

Bodies, Speech, and Reproductive Knowledge in Early Modern England 

Sara D. Luttfring 

Series: Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture
Hardcover: 12 pages
Publisher: Routledge (August 3, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1138849426

This volume examines early modern representations of women’s reproductive knowledge through new readings of plays, monstrous birth pamphlets, medical treatises, court records, histories, and more, which are often interpreted as depicting female reproductive bodies as passive, silenced objects of male control and critique. Luttfring argues instead that these texts represent women exercising epistemological control over reproduction through the stories they tell about their bodies and the ways they act these stories out, combining speech and physical performance into what Luttfring calls 'bodily narratives.' The power of these bodily narratives extends beyond knowledge of individual bodies to include the ways that women’s stories about reproduction shape the patriarchal identities of fathers, husbands, and kings. In the popular print and theater of early modern England, women’s bodies, women’s speech, and in particular women’s speech about their bodies perform socially constitutive work: constructing legible narratives of lineage and inheritance; making and unmaking political alliances; shaping local economies; and defining/delimiting male socio-political authority in medical, royal, familial, judicial, and economic contexts. This book joins growing critical discussion of how female reproductive bodies were used to represent socio-political concerns and will be of interest to students and scholars working in early modern literature and culture, women’s history, and the history of medicine.

La nourriture entre festin et famine

Food, Feast and Famine 

Call for Papers

International Medieval Congress – Leeds, UK, 4-7 July 2016

The history of medieval food is a burgeoning field of research but its health dimensions are still neglected (see attached flier for more details). In order to redress some aspects of this neglect, up to three sessions are proposed for IMC 2016 for its special thematic strand of Food, Feast and Famine. The potential sessions are:

1 – Ingestion and digestion: anatomy, physiology, pathology

Proposals for this theme could consider medieval theories of digestion, medieval understanding of the parts of the body involved and their functions – which might also involve wider cultural beliefs about the mouth, teeth, stomach, intestines, evacuation, etc – and ideas about what might go wrong with these processes and members and what could be done about it.

2 – Food-related illness and injury

Proposals for this theme could consider (fears of) food poisoning (both intentional and as a result of adulteration or other issue), choking, cooking and other food-related occupational injuries, cases of diarrhoea or dysentery linked to food intake, unusual unintentional ingestion e.g. leeches, snakes, spiders, or status-related illness due to not being able to eat the foods deemed appropriate to one’s station.

3 – Hunger, obesity and emaciation as health problems

Proposals for this theme could include food cravings, surfeit, alcoholism, mobility problems linked to obesity, hunger as a sign of illness/cure, any perceived medieval relationship between hunger, poverty and disease, emaciation as sign of voluntary fasting (where perceived to be a health problem), or emaciation as a sign of involuntary starvation or serious illness (the latter already recognized in the Hippocratic corpus).

Please send a title and a 200-word abstract to Iona McCleery at the University of Leeds by 10 September 2015 via email at i.mccleery@leeds.ac.uk.

Please visit https://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2016_call.html for more details on the congress including estimated registration and accommodation costs and the bursary fund. 

Histoire épistémologique de la médecine chinoise

Historical epistemology and the making of modern Chinese medicine 

Howard Chiang


Hardcover: 262 pages
Publisher: Manchester University Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0719096006
ISBN-13: 978-0719096006

This collection expands the history of Chinese medicine by bridging the philosophical concerns of epistemology and the history and cultural politics of transregional medical formations. Topics range from the spread of gingko's popularity from East Asia to the West to the appeal of acupuncture for complementing in-vitro fertilisation regimens, from the modernisation of Chinese anatomy and forensic science to the evolving perceptions of the clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine.

The individual essays cohere around the powerful theoretical-methodological approach, historical epistemology, with which scholars in science studies have already challenged the seemingly constant and timeless status of such rudimentary but pivotal dimensions of scientific process as knowledge, reason, argument, objectivity, evidence, fact and truth. Yet given that landmark studies in historical epistemology rarely navigate outside the intellectual landscape of Western science and medicine, this book broadens our understanding of its application and significance by drawing on and exploring the rich cultures of Chinese medicine. In studying the globalising role of medical objects, the contested premise of medical authority and legitimacy, and the syncretic transformations of metaphysical and ontological knowledge, contributors illuminate how the breadth of the historical study of Chinese medicine and its practices of knowledge-making in the modern period must be at once philosophical and transnational in scope.

This book will appeal to students and scholars working in science studies and medical humanities as well as readers who are interested in the broader problems of translation, material culture and the global circulation of knowledge.

Prix d'histoire de la médecine irlandaise

RCPI History of Medicine Research Award 2015

Call for applications

The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland is delighted to announce the launch of the fifth annual RCPI History of Medicine Research Award. The award will be made as part of the Heritage Centre Lectures at the St Luke’s Symposium, to be held on Tuesday 13 October 2015. This is a public event, to encourage engagement with the history of medicine in Ireland.

The award prize is €500.

The RCPI History of Medicine Research Award is open to all researchers in the field of the history of medicine in Ireland, as well as related social and cultural history fields. The purpose of the award is to support and develop the study of the history of medicine in Ireland, and to promote the use of the library, archive and heritage item collections held by RCPI.

Applicants are asked to submit an abstract based on their research (maximum 800 words) with a copy of their CV, by Friday 4 September 2015. Research must be unpublished and must have been undertaken in the last 3 years. Research which has been submitted for publication will be considered, but details should be given of when and where it has been submitted, and if it has been accepted for publication.

A judging process will commence in September which will conclude with four finalists presenting their 15 minute research papers to an adjudication panel on Tuesday 13 October 2015.


Click here to download the guidelines and applications form.

For further information on the RCPI History of Medicine Research Award, please contact Harriet Wheelock at harrietwheelock@rcpi.ie.

Our 2014 winner, Ailish Veale, gave a paper entitled In a class of her own: negotiating religious and medical identities in the missions. You can watch Ailish’s presentation on the RCPI player.

You can also watch all the presentations from previous years of the event on the RCPI Player.

Frankenstein, le démiurge des Lumières

Frankenstein, le démiurge des Lumières

Appel à contributions

Colloque international 8-9-10 décembre 2016.

5, rue de Candolle 

Genève, Confédération Suisse (1205) 

Pour le 200e anniversaire du début de la rédaction en 1816 à Cologny près de Genève par Mary Shelley de Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, ce colloque transdisciplinaire veut revenir sur ce grand mythe de la modernité littéraire avec ses figures, ses lieux, ses thématiques et ses objets spécifiques. Il sera notamment accompagné d’une rétrospective cinématographique (Activités culturelles, UNIGE) et d’une exposition sur les déclinaisons esthétiques de l’œuvre (Musée d’art et d’histoire, Genève). Dans un projet global d’histoire culturelle, le colloque veut mobiliser, croiser et déployer les disciplines et les savoirs des sciences humaines d’aujourd’hui pour penser le genre, les sources directes et indirectes, les antécédents, la genèse, l’écriture, le langage, la publication, la réception, la critique, les éditions, l’iconographie, l’intertextualité, les traductions, la postérité, les avatars culturels du roman Frankenstein : théâtre, littérature populaire, iconographie, arts plastiques, opéra, radio, cinéma, bande dessinée, produits dérivés, etc. À partir de l’œuvre insérée en son contexte socio-culturel, le colloque s’intéressera à la fabrication, à la diffusion, aux usages, à la descendance et aux détournements du paradigme prométhéen qu’universalise depuis deux siècles Frankenstein dans l’imaginaire social.

Dans l’héritage naturaliste et expérimental des Lumières, à la croisée des romans philosophique, épistolaire, gothique, noir et d’épouvante, au carrefour du romantisme littéraire et de la « fiction scientifique », on questionnera les grandes thématiques et les ambitieuses questions religieuses, philosophiques, politiques, littéraires, esthétiques, épistémologiques et éthiques sur la connaissance, la science, le savant, le corps, l’identité, le genre, l’expérimentation, la loi, la création et la transmission de la vie, la post-humanité, le mal et la mort que pose l’œuvre romanesque avec son imaginaire « gothique ». Autour du bricolage cadavérique de la créature, dont la bonté innée se brise sur le monde social qui la réprouve en sa difformité corporelle comme incarnation du mal moral, notre colloque balisera le périmètre culturel des sens, des usages et des représentations qu’induisent jusqu’à aujourd’hui les lectures critiques, les déclinaisons et les réappropriations de Frankenstein. Un volume collectif sera tiré des travaux du colloque.

Après le Golem (statue d’argile de la kabbale) que vivifie le « Grand rabbin de Prague », la figure démiurgique inspire la romancière Mary Shelley (1797-1851), fille du philosophe William Godwin et de la féministe Mary Wollstonecraft. Au terme d’un tour européen pour fuir l’Angleterre de la Regency, Mary s’installe en mai 1816 à Cologny avec sa demi-sœur Claire Clermont et son futur mari, le poète Percy B. Shelley. Les accompagnent l’écrivain Byron et le médecin William Polidori. L’été 1816 est apocalyptique. Le climat calamiteux attise les cauchemars nocturnes de Mary et la rêverie morbide de ses amis. Ils évoquent le médecin Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) qui galvanise des cadavres pour les animer. Ils décident de rédiger un récit de fantômes dans le prisme du conte gothique. Le défi est relevé par Mary et Polidori, qui en 1819 édite sa célèbre nouvelle The Vampyre. De son côté,la romancière publie anonymement en 1818 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne, version française en 1821). Après l’adaptation théâtrale de Richard B. Peake (Presumption or the Fate of Frankenstein), elle le réédite sous son nom en 1823, avant l’ultime version de 1831. Suivant le rousseauisme épistolaire de La Nouvelle Héloïse, Frankenstein déplore la médecine expérimentale et la fabrication d’un nouvel « Adam ». Dans une Suisse pastorale, le récit suit le projet naturaliste de Victor Frankenstein. Ce lecteur de Newton assemble les débris cadavériques d’une créature haute de « huit pieds ». Y ayant greffé un cerveau, il l’anime puis voit l’éveil de la « matière inerte ». Le naturaliste est écrasé par son audace. Si la face de l’Homme créé par Dieu incarne sa bonté, celle suturée de la créature affolée reflète la noirceur morale du démiurge. Rayonnante d’amour pour l’humanité, apprenant à lire comme Rousseau dans les Vies des hommes illustres de Plutarque, mais « terrifiée » par son reflet aquatique, la créature est poussée au mal par la société qui l’abomine. Seul un vieillard aveugle la réconforte. Pressé par le « monstre » que sa défiguration prive d’« affection », Frankenstein veut créer une « réplique féminine », puis recule pour ne pas générer une « race » dénaturée. L’« hideux monstre » plonge alors son « maudit créateur » dans la désolation. La joute titanesque culmine au cœur des ténèbres purificatrices du Pôle Nord. Best-seller planétaire et intarissable source d’inspiration culturelle, le roman est adapté au cinéma au moins 135 fois depuis le Frankenstein matriciel de J.S. Dawley en 1910. Dans la cinquième version filmique par James Whale (Frankenstein, USA, 1931) pour Universal, Boris Karloff immortalise la face douloureuse du monstre, avant que la Hammer ne s’empare dès 1956 du Démiurge des Lumières. Rendu fou par sa recherche résurrectionniste, Frankenstein y devient le vrai monstre moral du mythe. 

Modalités pratiques d'envoi des propositions

Titre et résumé de communications (1000 signes) avant le 15 novembre 2015 :

olinda.testori@unige.ch - frankenstein2016@unige.ch

Comité organisateur

Université de Genève (Faculté des Lettres, Département d’histoire générale, Unité d’histoire moderne)

Ambroise Barras (UNIGE, AC),

Justine Moeckli (MAH-Genève),

Michel Porret (UNIGE-ISTGE),

Olinda Testori (UNIGE-ISTGE)

Comité scientifique

Vincent Barras (UNIL)

Jan Blanc (UNIGE)

Alain Boillat (UNIL)

Frédéric Chauvaud (Uni. de Poitiers)

Valérie Cossy (UNIL)

Julia Douthwaite (University of Notre-Dame, IN)

Roland Fisher ( Mad Scientist Festival-2016)

Vincent Fontana (UNIGE)

Erzsi Kukorelly (UNIGE)

Jan Lacki (UNIGE)

Antoine Lilti (EHESS)

Patricia Lombardo (UNIGE)

Marylin Marignan (Université Lumière Lyon 2)

Benoît Melançon (Uni. de Montréal)

Jérôme Massard (Collectif KLAT)

Magali Le Mens (UNIGE)

Bernard Novet (metteur en scène et réalisateur de télévision)

Martial Poirson (Uni. de Paris VIII)

François Rosset (UNIL)

Martin Rueff (UNIGE)

Konstantin Sgouridis (Collectif KLAT)

Simon Swift (UNIGE)

Regards sur le médecin légiste

Regards sur le médecin légiste

Appel à Communication

Journée d’étude

EHESS-Paris, le 8 décembre 2015

Journée organisée avec le soutien de l’IRIS dans le cadre du cycle de manifestations scientifiques "Médecine légale et santé publique" entamé en 2014 (voir le programme sur le site de l'Iris http://iris.ehess.fr), cette troisième journée d’étude qui aura lieu à l’EHESS-Paris le 8 décembre 2015 sera consacrée à la présentation de regards croisés sur la profession de médecin légiste.

Elle est destinée à rassembler des médecins français et étrangers et des chercheurs en sciences humaines, juridiques et sociales confrontés à la question de l’identité professionnelle du médecin légiste, et de ses liens réels ou supposés avec la médecine légale, dans un contexte où son travail fait l’objet de multiples attentes, et de représentations parfois contradictoires.

Les propositions d’intervention peuvent s’articuler autour des questionnements suivants :

- Comment les médecins légistes se voient-ils eux-mêmes ? Comment les autres médecins les voient-ils ? Quels liens établir entre le médecin légiste et la médecine légale ?

- Quels regards les sciences humaines, juridiques et sociales portent-elles sur le médecin légiste et la médecine légale?

Les propositions de communication de 500 mots maximum, accompagnées d’un bref curriculum vitae mentionnant les coordonnées complètes de l’auteur et son affiliation institutionnelle, sont à adresser avant le 15 septembre 2015 à patrick.chariot@aphp.fr


Les frais de transport et d’hébergement des auteurs des communications retenues pourront être pris en charge par les organisateurs.

Le personnel médical en zone de guerre

Working in a world of hurt: Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personnel in warzones


Carol Acton & Jane Potter


Series: Cultural History of Modern War MUP
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Manchester University Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0719090363

Working a World of Hurt fills a lacunae in the studies of the psychological trauma wrought by war by focusing not on soldiers, but on the men and women who fought to save them in casualty clearing stations, hospitals, and prison camps. Through a rich analysis of both published and unpublished personal accounts by doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and other medical personnel from the major wars of the 20th and early 21st centuries, Acton and Potter uncover a spectrum of responses to what was often unimaginable suffering, responses that ranged from breakdown to resilience, from exhausted resignation to firmer belief in humanity despite the brutalities of armed conflict. Organised chronologically, the chapters are distinguished by their focus on such individuals as American ambulance drivers in the First World War, British P.O.W. doctors in the Second World War, and nurses, doctors and medics in the Vietnam War. And with a chapter dedicated to the recent narratives of medical personnel in Iraq, the study is highly topical and situates the life-writing from these contemporary wars within a larger tradition of war literature. Wide-ranging in scope and interdisciplinary in method, Working in a World of Hurt puts the letters, diaries, memoirs, and weblogs that chronicle physical and emotional suffering centre stage, many for the first time. These testaments to the torment of combatants also--crucially--bear witness to the harrowing struggles of wartime healers. Scholarly yet accessible, it will appeal to lecturers and students as well as the general reader.

Les cultures de la malveillance dans les institutions de soin

Cultures of Harm in Institutions of Care: Historical & Contemporary Perspectives

Call for papers


15-16 April 2016

Birkbeck, University of London


In 1921, Dr Montagu Lomax published a searing indictment of Prestwich Asylum exposing an entrenched sub-culture of malpractice, negligence and abuse. Recent historical research has shown that many of the same practices were still taking place at Prestwich fifty years later.

Similar abuses continue today. Stafford Hospital, Winterbourne View and the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile are among the more recent examples of how systemic violence and neglect can be visited upon some of society’s most vulnerable individuals in institutions that have been charged with a special duty of care.

This two-day conference will explore the shifting political, socio-economic, cultural and medical influences that have formed and perpetuated cultures of harm from the eighteenth century to the present day across the world. We are particularly interested in the production of harmful practices – physical, sexual and psychological violence directed by one person or group against another – in therapeutic and caring environments. These might include hospitals and infirmaries, psychiatric facilities, religious institutions, care homes, children’s homes and educational establishments, as well as infirmaries and medical spaces in prisons and correctional institutions, military barracks, camps and workhouses.

We welcome papers from all academic disciplines. Suggested themes include:

• Institutional contexts that contribute to specific cultures and social relationships between individuals and groups
• The impact of wider societal factors on institutional cultures and contexts
• Shifting power relations and cultural differences and similarities between staff, patients and other groups
• Issues around individual and collective agency, resistance and complicity, as well as coercion, scapegoating, ‘whistleblowing’, bullying and negotiation between individuals
• The role and use of space such as seclusion, locked wards, single/mixed-sex wards
• Effects of the institutional environment around activity and stimulation, privacy, communication, and support for staff
• Treatments, medication, the use of restraints, issues around consent
• Staff recruitment, conditions and training
• The role of emotions such as fear, pain, shame, humiliation, guilt, anger, sadness, pleasure, desire and nostalgia
• The role of narrative, language and silence, reporting and non-reporting, including the use of the language of care and therapy to justify violent practices
• Representations in art, literature, film and drama
• Factors that have disrupted or changed harmful cultures for the better
• The role of wider public institutions and agencies such as medicine, the law, social services, academia, religion, government and the media
• Theoretical, methodological and ethical approaches and challenges.

Whilst this is primarily an academic conference, we would be delighted to receive proposals for artistic work such as a short film, a poetry reading or performance art.

Confirmed speakers: Allan Young, an anthropologist and the Marjorie Bronfman Professor in Social Studies in Medicine (McGill) and Richard Bessel, Professor of Twentieth Century History (York).

Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words together with a brief outline of your academic affiliation to trauma@mail.bbk.ac.uk by 20 September 2015. You will be informed whether or not your paper is successful in early October. Some travel and accommodation bursaries may be available.

This event is organised by Professor Joanna Bourke, Dr Louise Hide and Dr Ana Antic in association with the Birkbeck Trauma Project supported by the Birkbeck Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.


Contact Info:
Professor Joanna Bourke, Dr Louise Hide and Dr Ana Antic
Birkbeck Trauma Project
Department of History, Classics and Archaeology
Birkbeck, University of London
London, UK

Contact Email:
trauma@mail.bbk.ac.uk

La fabrique de la pudeur à la Renaissance

Équivoques de la pudeur. Fabrique d'une passion à la Renaissance

Dominique Brancher 

Librairie Droz
7 juillet 2015

ISBN-13 978-2-600-01787-9  

904 pages

« Qu’a fait l’action génitale aux hommes, si naturelle, si nécessaire, et si juste, pour n’en oser parler sans vergogne », s’indigne Montaigne qui ne se prive pas, quant à lui, de mettre la pudeur au service de l’économie sensuelle de son œuvre. Car qui « n’y va que d’une fesse » y va tout de même. Aussi fallait-il dégager la pudeur d’une approche anthropologique naïve, pour souligner l’ambiguïté d’une passion où le retour de l’obscène le dispute sans cesse au refoulement vertueux. Mesurer également combien la Renaissance dut repenser cette ambivalence, en confrontant l’héritage antique et médiéval à ses propres découvertes. Du De verecundia de Salutati (1390) jusqu’à l’officialisation du mot au XVIIe siècle par Vaugelas, s’invente en effet, au fil d’un débat où se croisent médecine, morale et rhétorique, un usage retors de la pudeur, à la fois épistémologique et poétique. Son enjeu n’est rien moins que le rôle assumé par les écritures du corps dans l’élaboration d’un savoir sexuel où la production de vérités conjugue toujours art érotique et art de ne pas dire.

Chimie et alchimie dans la santé et la maladie

Alchemy and Chemistry in Sickness and in Health  

Call for Papers

6th SHAC Postgraduate Workshop
Maison Française, University of  Oxford
(Friday, 30 October 2015)

This year the annual postgraduate workshop of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) will take place in the UK, at the Maison Française, Oxford. The workshop offers postgraduate students and early-career researchers the opportunity to share ideas, explore methodological issues and network in a stimulating atmosphere. There will also be the chance to

engage with two keynote speakers:

Prof. Robert J. Flanagan (King’s College Hospital)

Dr Stephen Pumfrey (Lancaster University)

The theme for 2015, ‘Alchemy and Chemistry in Sickness and Health’, seeks to explore the relationship between alchemy and chemistry on the one hand and, on the other, the health of individuals and/or of society as a whole. Topics may address the intentional use of alchemy and chemistry for purposes relating to health or the unintended side-effects of their employment in this area.

We would like to invite papers (between 15 and 20 minutes) on topics related to the workshop theme in any historical period. Please submit an abstract of up to 200 words by email to the SHAC student representatives, Judith Mawer (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Mike A. Zuber (University of Amsterdam), studentrep@ambix.org. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 30 July 2015.

Presenters should either be currently enrolled as postgraduate students or active as junior researchers (within three years of PhD  completion).

Possible topics include but are by no means  limited to:

• alchemical/chemical treatments of physical or mental health issues
• health hazards within or emerging from the laboratory
• historical attitudes on the relationship between
• alchemy/chemistry and health
• alchemical/chemical theories of sickness and health
• development and use of iatrochemical/pharmaceutical solutions for disease prevention, treatment, diagnostics or well-being

The workshop is free of charge. Bursaries are available towards the cost of travel and/or accommodation for confirmed presenters in the first instance.

Histoire de la psychothérapie en Amérique

History of psychotherapy in North and South America


Call for papers

History of Psychology invites submissions for a special issue on the history of psychotherapy in North and South America.

The history of psychotherapy is a topic that cuts across disciplines and cultures. In North America, psychotherapy pre-dates Freud in the faith healing and liberal protestant movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, even as Freud took the limelight, the practice passed through many professions including neuropathology, psychiatry, social work, the ministry and clinical psychology, as well as marriage and family counseling, nursing, and a host of others. Psychotherapy also became the darling of cinema and literature. And yet, psychotherapy has never been a licensed profession. Anyone can hang out a shingle as a “psychotherapist.” Psychotherapy has thus been both a staple of, and a lens onto, medicine, science and culture for nearly 125 years.

How can we make sense of this ubiquitous and yet historically elusive practice? This special issue of HOP opens up the conversation to historians from a broad spectrum of specialties. We welcome contributions on any aspect of the subject in North or South America, but ask contributors to keep within the time-frame of late 19th century (when the term “psychotherapy” originated) to the present.

We are excited to announce that this special issue will be coordinated with a special issue of History of the Human Sciences on the history of psychotherapy in Europe (guest editor Sarah Marks). This simultaneous publication of two special issues on the history of psychotherapy marks the beginning of an international conversation about what psychotherapy is and how its practices have proliferated across time and culture.

The submission deadline is January 1, 2016.

The main text of each manuscript, exclusive of figures, tables, references, or appendixes, should not exceed 35 double-spaced pages (approximately 7,500 words).

Initial inquiries regarding the special issue may be sent to the guest editor, Rachael Rosner <rachael@denenberg.com> or the regular editor, Nadine Weidman <hop.editor@icloud.com>.

Papers should be submitted through the History of Psychology Manuscript Submission Portal with a cover letter indicating that the paper is to be considered for the special issue. Please see the Instructions to Authors information located on the History of Psychology website.

Histoire de la psychanalyse

Fulbright-Freud Visiting Scholar of Psychoanalysis, 2016-17

Call for applications

Deadline: August 1, 2015

Length of Grant: 4 months

Starting Date: March 1, 2017

Location: Sigmund Freud Foundation and Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna

Benefits: This award includes a travel grant of Euro 800, medical and accident insurance, and a monthly stipend of Euro 3,300 per month for four months.

Language: The Austrian Fulbright Commission expects Fulbright-Freud scholars to have a high level of German proficiency, although English may be used as the language of instruction.

Qualifications: Open to associate and full professors. Several years of teaching/lecturing or professional experience in relevant fields of psychoanalysis.

Grant Activity: Conduct research at the Sigmund Freud Foundation in Vienna and teach between one or two courses or seminars on a topic related to the research project at a Viennese host institution. 

Applicants should explain why their research needs to be conducted in Vienna. Details of teaching assignment are to be arranged by the Sigmund Freud Foundation and the Austrian Fulbright Commission in consultation with grantee.

Specialization(s): human sciences, cultural studies, theory and/or practice of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic studies, neurosciences in relation to psychoanalysis, arts related to psychoanalysis.

Comments: Applicants must solicit a letter of invitation from the Sigmund Freud Foundation by submitting a curriculum vitae and research/lecturing proposal. Grantee will have a workstation in the library of the Sigmund Freud Museum. Visit www.freud-museum.at for more information about the Freud Museum.

Contact person: Dr. Daniela Finzi, Research, Sigmund Freud Foundation, Berggasse 19, A 1090 Vienna; ph. +431 319 15 96 0; fax: +431 317 02 79; e-Mail: office@freud-museum.at.

Link to Application:
http://catalog.cies.org/

Peste et empire dans le monde méditerranéen

Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World. The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600

Nükhet Varlik

Cambridge University Press

Available from July 2015
ISBN: 9781107013384
$99.99 (C)

This is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. Using a wealth of archival and narrative sources, including medical treatises, hagiographies, and travelers' accounts, as well as recent scientific research, Nükhet Varlik demonstrates how plague interacted with the environmental, social, and political structures of the Ottoman Empire from the late medieval through the early modern era. The book argues that the empire's growth transformed the epidemiological patterns of plague by bringing diverse ecological zones into interaction and by intensifying the mobilities of exchange among both human and non-human agents. Varlik maintains that persistent plagues elicited new forms of cultural imagination and expression, as well as a new body of knowledge about the disease. In turn, this new consciousness sharpened the Ottoman administrative response to the plague, while contributing to the makings of an early modern state.

Histoire du concept de 'systèmes de santé'

Research Assistant


Call for applications

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Faculty of Public Health & Policy

Location: London

Salary: £32,324 to £37,106 per annum inclusive of London Weighting

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Contract / Temporary

Closes: 11th August 2015

Job Ref: MG-RA1

We are seeking to appoint a Research Assistant to work on a project examining the intellectual and policy history of the ‘health systems’ concept. This project is a component of Dr Martin Gorsky’s Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Investigator Award ‘Health Systems in History: Ideas, comparisons, policies’, and the post-holder will work under Dr Gorsky’s direction. The post is based in London at the Centre for History in Public Health http://history.lshtm.ac.uk/ in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The post-holder will be expected to undertake literature searches, research on primary documentary sources and some oral history work, all relating to the development of health systems as an idea and as an object of policy. In addition, s/he will be expected to: play a full part in the work and collaborative activities of the Award team; present research findings to conferences, seminars and workshops and the media; and collaborate in writing up results for a range of outputs, which may include peer-reviewed journal articles and non-academic outputs. There will also be some teaching duties.

S/he will be required to have a Masters level qualification (or equivalent) in history or a related social science discipline, experience of conducting historical research, ideally in a health context, as well as proven ability to write up research findings for dissemination in a range of formats for different audiences, such as websites and reports. The post-holder will also have a proven ability to deliver research outputs to project deadlines, the ability to collaborate effectively as part of a team and excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

The appointment will be full time, commencing October 2015 until March 2019. Salary will be on the Research Assistant Scale, £32,324 - £37,106 (inclusive of London Weighting) (as at 01.08.14). Appointment will be subject to LSHTM terms and conditions, including membership of the Universities Superannuation Scheme, an annual leave allowance of 30 days pro rata plus 6 fixed ‘Director’s Days’ and season ticket loan.

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Martin Gorsky, martin.gorsky@lshtm.ac.uk.

Applications should be made on-line via our website at http://jobs.lshtm.ac.uk The reference for this post is MG-RA1. Applications should include a CV and the names and email contacts of two referees who can be contacted immediately if shortlisted. Any queries regarding the application process may be addressed to jobs@lshtm.ac.uk.

Closing date for the receipt of applications is 11 August 2015 and it is anticipated that interviews will be held in September 2015.


The supporting statement section should set out how your qualifications, experience and training meet each of the selection criteria. Please provide one or more paragraphs addressing each criterion. The supporting statement is an essential part of the selection process and thus a failure to provide this information will mean that the application will not be considered. An answer to any of the criteria such as “Please see attached CV” will not be considered acceptable.

Please note that if you are shortlisted and are unable to attend on the interview date it may not be possible to offer you an alternative date.

La fabrique du patient-consommateur en Angleterre

Making the patient-consumer. Patient organisations and health consumerism in Britain

Alex Mold

Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: July 2015
238 pages

ISBN: 978-0-7190-9531-3

Over the last fifty years, British patients have been transformed into consumers. This book considers how and why the figure of the patient-consumer was brought into being, paying particular attention to the role played by patient organisations. Making the patient-consumer explores the development of patient-consumerism from the 1960s to 2010 in relation to seven key areas. Patient autonomy, representation, complaint, rights, information, voice and choice were all central to the making of the patient-consumer. These concepts were used initially by patient organisations, but by the 1990s the government had taken over as the main actor shaping ideas about patient-consumerism. This volume is the first empirical, historical account of a fundamental shift in modern British health policy and practice. The book will be of use to historians, public policy analysts and all those attempting to better understand the nature of contemporary healthcare.

William Bynum Prize

William Bynum Prize


Call for applications

The William Bynum Prize will be awarded to the author of an original essay on any theme relating to the history of medicine and its related sciences. This international competition is open to doctoral students and early post-doctoral researchers (candidates who have completed their PhDs not longer than 3 years before submission of the entry). The Prize’s awarding committee will be chaired by Professor Bynum himself, supported by the editor and members of the editorial advisory board of the journal Medical History. The Prize is generously supported by Cambridge University Press, publishers of Medical History. The Prize is coordinated by Medical History's editorial office which resides within the Centre for Global Health Histories, Department of History, University of York.

All enquiries regarding the competition should be directed to the editor of Medical History, Professor Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Director of the Centre for Global Health Histories. Please note that the specifications for submissions are the same as for a general article submitted to Medical History (please see www.york.ac.uk/history/global-health-histories/publications-outreach/bynum-prize/ for further information).

All submissions should be sent to the journal editor by the 1 September 2015. Details of the winning essay and its author will be announced in early 2016. The William Bynum Prize will take the shape of a £250 cash award and £250 in Cambridge University Press vouchers. The winning entry will be published in Medical History if it succeeds in undergoing the journal’s usual reviewing processes.

For further information please visit www.york.ac.uk/history/global-health-histories/publications-outreach/bynum-prize/ .

Sens et diagnostic

Sense and Diagnosis

Exhibition

Chetham’s Library

17th July – 9th October 2015

‘Sense and Diagnosis’, an exhibition curated by students from MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester, opens at Chetham’s Library in Manchester on 17th July 2015.

Sense and Diagnosis draws on collections from the Museum of Medicine and Health (University of Manchester) and Chetham’s Library to explore the role of the senses in medical diagnosis.

The five senses are the doctor’s most fundamental toolkit. Throughout history medical physicians have used their hands, eyes, ears, noses and even tongues to interact with the bodies of their patients; to assess what is happening below the skin and diagnose disease. This makes for an incredibly intimate relationship, but one that is increasingly mediated by medical technology. The stethoscope, the thermometer, the pen torch; they all serve to enhance the doctor’s senses, but they also create a distance, both physically and emotionally.

The project started its life as a group exhibition proposal for the Managing Collections and Exhibitions MA module. With support from the Institute for Cultural Practices, the Museum of Medicine and Health and Chetham’s Library, the five students have been able to make the project happen for real.

This will include a unique performance art event ‘See / Hear / Touch’, which is a series of one-to-one performances exploring the relationship between the senses of sight, hearing and touch and medical diagnosis. The performances, which will take place in Chetham’s Library during the preview event on Thursday 16th July 2015, draw on a variety of influences, from personal experience, medical equipment to research into historical diagnosis techniques.

Join us for the exhibition preview and the unique performances ‘See / Hear / Touch’ on Thursday 16 July 2015, 6-8pm

More information on the project blog: http://senseanddiagnosis.tumblr.com/

Les paratextes médicaux

Dissecting the Page: Medical Paratexts 

Call for Papers

University of Glasgow, 11 September 2015


This interdisciplinary conference draws together two emerging and complementary areas of research in the medical humanities: book history (as it pertains to medical texts), and the study of medical paratexts. We understand paratext as the apparatus of graphic communication: title pages, prefaces, illustrations, marginalia, and publishing details which act as mediators between text and reader. Discussing the development of medical paratexts across scribal, print and digital media, from the medieval period to the twenty-first century, the conference will take place on Friday 11 September 2015 at the University of Glasgow.

From Christina Lee’s discovery of the MRSA-combatting properties of an Anglo-Saxon recipe, to the increasing popularity of Ian Williams’ Graphic Medicine as a teaching tool for medical students, current research into the intersections between medicine, text, and image is producing dynamic and unexpected results (Thorpe: 2015; Lee: 2014; Taavitsainen: 2010; Couser: 2009; Cioffi: 2009; Díaz-Vera: 2009). With this conference, our keynote speakers will encompass collections-based approaches to medical humanities research (Prof. Jeremy Smith); the use of modern medical knowledge to inform medieval material research (Dr Deborah Thorpe); and creative approaches to medical humanities and contemporary medical practice. Recent years have seen several conferences and publications on paratextual research, and a range of events orientated around literature and medicine, but there is little crossover between the two fields. We propose that the breadth of research into medical book history in the medieval and early-modern period will prompt productive and innovative overlaps with work on modern medical paratexts and graphic novels. By focusing exclusively on medical paratexts, our aim is to establish an interdisciplinary network of scholars interested in graphic communication and medical practice. In addition to our keynote speakers and roundtable discussion, Glasgow’s Special Collections department have agreed to curate a display of medical marvels, medieval to modern, to coincide with the conference.

We are now looking for academics, artists, and medical professionals of all levels, periods, and fields to present their papers and to participate in the discussions that this conference aims to facilitate. Successful abstracts will be pre-circulated on the conference website and associated Twitter feed in advance of the conference. There are two travel bursaries available for postgraduate and/or ECR presenters; the recipients of these grants will be asked to write a short reflection on the conference, which will be published on the MHRC blog and the conference website. We also intend to publish an edited collection, to which conference speakers will be invited to contribute.

We invite papers on topics that include (but are not limited to):

• the role of the medical preface
• graphic medicine in popular culture
• medicine, illness, and/or disability and graphic novels
• the development and role of medical (and medicalised) illustrations
• the advertising and placement of texts depicting medicine/illness/disability
• complex publications: overlaps between literature, art, theology, and medicine
• the development of paratext in medical texts from script to print
• the use and readers of medical texts
• auto/biography and medicine

Please email an abstract of up to 300 words and a short bio to the conference organisers (medicalparatexts@gmail.com) by Thursday 30th July. If you wish to be considered for one of the PG/ECR bursaries, please email us for an application form and submit it with your abstract and bio. We will contact all respondents on the outcome of their proposal by Friday 7th August. Thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust, this conference will be free to attend.

The conference venue, the Sir Alwyn Williams Building, is fully accessible. If you have any questions, please email the organising committee (Dr Hannah Tweed, Dr Diane Scott, and Dr Johanna Green), or contact us via @ParatextMatters.

Histoire de deux hôpitaux de l’arrière à Brive

Quand la grande guerre s’invite à Brive, 1914-1917 Histoire de deux hôpitaux de l’arrière

Jérémy BRUNET

• 
  
• Broché: 514 pages
  Editeur : Presses Universitaires de Limoges et du Limousin (22 novembre 2014)
  Collection : Rencontre des historiens du Limousin
  ISBN-13: 978-2842876302

Brive, dimanche 30 août 1914 : la population attend, fébrile, l’arrivée de « ses » premiers blessés de guerre. « Un spectacle à la fois pénible et grandiose » l’attend. Brive entrevoit les premiers indices du drame qui se joue déjà sur le front. Les hôpitaux corréziens accueillent des soldats martyrisés par l’armement moderne de cette première guerre de masse industrielle. Très vite on s’organise pour porter assistance à ces hôtes exceptionnels nimbés de prestige. Une vague de générosité les enveloppe. Elle ne sera pas de trop pour pallier les insuffisances initiales d’un service de santé qui entame le conflit avec une doctrine de prise en charge erronée. À l’orée de la guerre, un dépôt de blessés s’installe dans la caserne Brune. Rapidement prise de court, la structure ne doit son salut qu’au soutien de la population civile. Au début de l’année 1915, un nouvel hôpital est aménagé dans le collège Cabanis. Son installation n’est pas exempte de rebondissements malgré l’élan de solidarité locale dont elle fait l’objet. Bien desservie, Brive fait partie intégrante du vaste dispositif d’hospitalisation militaire de l’intérieur qui se construit et évolue au fil de la guerre. L’intrusion soudaine des blessés et des hôpitaux affecte la vie quotidienne de la population civile. La générosité spontanée des premiers temps se trouve peu à peu confrontée au prolongement imprévu de la guerre. La situation s’éternise, l’endurance charitable locale s’étiole... 

Les archives du fonds 1914-1918 du service des archives médicales et hospitalières des armées, du centre de documentation du musée du service de santé ainsi que la presse locale corrézienne ont permis de reconstituer l’histoire des hôpitaux militaires temporaires qui ont fonctionné à Brive et dans ses environs pendant la Grande Guerre.