Skip to main content

Body and Medicine in Latin Poetry’, which will take place online on the 17th and 18th September 2020.

The ongoing epidemic crisis brought forth by the spread of Covid-19 compels us to rethink the concepts of body and disease in light of their effect on human nature, as well as seek new methods to cope with the sense of anxiety and vulnerability generated by such pandemic diseases.

This conference will navigate the relationship between Medical Science and Humanities in Antiquity, with papers exploring how medicine can be integrated into poetry and how poetry, in turn, can propagate medical knowledge across various social classes and cultural contexts. Further to that, the conference will explore the extent to which such a relationship reflects our individual concerns about the validity and consistence of medicine as a science of the Human.

This conference builds on the recent developments in the field of Medical Humanities, thereby showing how medical knowledge is incorporated within Latin poetry and how it responds to our contemporary understanding of medical sciences. While intersections between Greek literature and medicine have become a focal point of considerable recent research among Classicists (e.g. Holmes 2010, Jouanna 2012), little has been done with Latin literature. By drawing on these interdisciplinary studies, this two-day conference aims at tackling innovatively the intersections between medical sciences and Latin poetry.

Confirmed speakers include:

Thorsten Fögen (Durham University)

Hunter Gardner (University of South Carolina)

George Kazantzidis (University of Patras)

Chiara Thumiger (University of Kiel)

Laurence Totelin (Cardiff University)

James Uden (Boston University)

Ioannis Ziogas (Durham University)

The conference will represent the first step towards the creation of a network of scholars working on the intersections between ancient medicine, human body and Latin poetry.

For further information see our website: https://bodyandmedicinelatin.weebly.com/ or contact us at: medicineandpoetry@gmail.com.

Link to the programme: https://bodyandmedicinelatin.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/2/3/132353983/poster_bmlp.pdf.

Link to registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/body-and-medicine-in-latin-poetry-tickets-110398364480?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=post_old_publish&utm_content=EBLinkEvent&utm_term=shortLinkViewMyEvent

Organisers:

Chiara Blanco (Trinity College, Oxford)

Allegra Hahn (Durham)

Simona Martorana (Durham)