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IMC 2013: Sessions

Session 1208: Medieval Childbirth: Representations and Realities

Wednesday 3 July 2013, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Rebecca Wynne Johnson, Department of History, Princeton University
Moderator/Chair:Theresa Earenfight, Department of History, Seattle University
Paper 1208-aTransfiguring the Nativity: Change and Continuity in the Iconography of Holy Births from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
(Language: English)
Costanza Gislon Dopfel, Department of Modern Languages / Department of Art History, Saint Mary's College of California
Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Art History - Painting, Social History, Women's Studies
Paper 1208-bMidwives in Medieval Arabic Sources: Between the Realm of the Patriarchs and the Kingdom of the Mothers
(Language: English)
Avner Giladi, Department of Middle Eastern History, University of Haifa
Index terms: Gender Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Medicine, Women's Studies
Paper 1208-cMortal Motherhood: Identifying Obstetric Deaths in Early Medieval English Burials
(Language: English)
Virginia Hatton, Department of Archaeology, University of York
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Demography, Medicine, Women's Studies
Abstract

Despite its literally vital importance to the continuation of society, childbirth remains among the most elusive of all medieval moments. Yet scholars nonetheless continue to find creative ways through which we may begin to apprehend some of what it meant socially, medically, and biologically. With presentations drawing on materials as diverse as Italian paintings, Arabic manuscripts, and skeletal remains from early medieval England, this eclectic international panel will explore what these varied sources have to tell us about the beginning of life in the Middle Ages.