Call for Papers
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK
5–8 July, 2027
This panel will explore the relationships between art, medicine, and nature in western and eastern communities across the Middle Ages. Medieval art historians have studied medical images for as long as the discipline has existed, but scholarship has often treated medical art as merely representing natural and cosmological phenomena. Moving beyond iconography, this panel invites papers that consider how images and objects actively mediated bodies, environments, and medical practices.
The connection between medieval healers and nature was complex; nature inflicted illnesses but also provided cures. Visual art played a central role in communicating and negotiating this fraught relationship. Art was used to teach and record medical knowledge, but art objects were also employed as apotropaic, protective, and powerfully curative in themselves.
Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
- Cosmological medical diagrams
- Illustrated herbal manuscripts
- Apotropaic and curative amulets, stones, and scrolls
- Natural materials and motifs in hospitals and pharmacies
- Animals and insects in medical manuscripts
- Depictions of healers, patients, and remedies
Submissions are due on Friday, September 11, 2026, to zka5@case.edu and ceh160@case.edu.
Please ensure your submission includes:
- Your name
- Your current affiliation
- Paper title
- Abstract (max 250 words)
- An updated CV
Decisions will be announced by Monday, September 28. If accepted, this session will take place in person at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, 2027.
Questions and concerns can be directed to the co-coordinators:
Zoe Appleby, zka5@case.edu, Doctoral Candidate, CWRU
Claudia Haines, ceh160@case.edu, Doctoral Candidate, CWRU
