Sessions médicales de Kalamazoo

Medical Sessions at Kalamazoo

Call for papers

Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars (historians, archaeologists, art historians, literary scholars, paleopathologists, etc.) focusing on health and healing in the Middle Ages.

In 2018 Medica will be sponsoring two sessions at the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan from May 10–13, 2018. These sessions are intended to focus on two different spaces where medical interactions took place. Together these sessions will explore questions relating to the ways in which these spaces of medical practice influenced how medical professionals shaped their careers and what different kinds of surgical and medical practices were provided. The specific sessions are:


1) Military Medicine: Wounds and Disease in Warfare

This session invites papers that explore questions relating to warfare and healing. We envision papers that might discuss the nature of wounds and battlefield injuries and/or their treatment. Papers that consider the biographies of battlefield surgeons and examine the training and career paths of these people would also be sought. Furthermore, papers might address questions relating to the general health of armies and their camp followers (including the prevalence of different diseases, nutritional concerns, etc.).


2) Medicine in Cities: Public Health and Medical Professions

This session invites papers that explore questions relating to health and the practice of medicine in cities. Papers in this session could explore the different types of healers present in urban centers (e.g. physicians, surgeons, barber-surgeons, apothecaries), their organization into guilds, and the ways in which their medical practices were regulated. Papers that consider questions about public health in cities are also welcomed – such papers might explore questions of sanitation, industrial health, the presence of animals in cities, food preparation, prevalent diseases, and similar topics.


If interested, please submit an abstract of roughly 250-300 words along with a Participant Information Form (PIF), which can be found at http://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions. All proposal materials are due by September 15, 2016.

If you have questions about either of the sessions, or would like to submit an abstract, please direct emails to Harry York at why@pdx.edu.