Afterlives of Ancient Medicine: Reception Studies or History of Medicine?
Sponsored by the Society for Ancient Medicine and Pharmacy (SAM). SAM is an affiliated group of the Society for Classical Studies.
Reception Studies has emerged as one of the most active and vibrant subfields in our discipline over the past two decades as well as a privileged site for examining relationships between past and present and disciplinary formations. The objects and texts under consideration have by no means been restricted to literary texts or works of visual art. But it is undeniable that literature and art, in particular, have played a powerful role in shaping the concerns and methods of the field.
The history of ancient Greco-Roman medicine—and by extension, the history of ancient science and the history of ancient philosophy—would seem to be naturally aligned with the interests and practices of reception studies. But at the same time, more than Greek or Latin literature, ancient medicine has an existing field that incorporates consideration of the aftermath of Greco-Roman medical ideas and practices, namely, the history of medicine (the same could be said of science and philosophy). This is not to say there has been no movement between the study of ancient medicine and reception studies. But there has perhaps been insufficient reflection on the stakes and implications of this cross-fertilization and the triangular relationship between ancient medicine, the history of medicine, and reception studies.
We therefore invite papers that pursue such a reflection. Some possible avenues of inquiry suggest themselves. If the reception of art, literature, and even philosophy tends to be taxonomized most easily as “classical,” what are the repercussions of reading “premodern” instead of “classical,” as is often the case in the location of antiquity within the larger history of medicine? What is at stake in these two terms, “premodern” and “classical”? How is the history of medicine like or unlike the history of science or philosophy? What does the study of ancient medicine after antiquity stand to gain from an understanding of this approach as a form of reception studies? How would such a reorientation change the relationship between ancient medicine and the study of Western medicine in later periods? Would it challenge or enforce the very idea of “Western” medicine itself? Moreover, how would reception studies itself change through a more self-conscious engagement with the history of medicine, or the history of science more broadly?
Accepted papers will be presented on the SAM panel at the SCS at the 2018 Annual Meeting, which will be held January 4-7, 2018 in Boston. Panelists must be members of the SCS at the time of presentation.
Please send an abstract of 500 words of your proposed paper (20 min.) by e-mail to Brooke Holmes (bholmes@princeton.edu). The abstract should omit any reference identifying the author to ensure anonymity in the review process. Deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2017.