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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1220: The Body and the Text: Medical Humanities and Medieval Literature, c. 1150-1550, III

Wednesday 3 July 2019, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University / Medical Humanities Research Centre (MHRC), Swansea University
Organisers:Laura Kalas Williams, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
Alison Williams, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
Moderator/Chair:Theresa Lorraine Tyers, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
Paper 1220-a'Rede hit sofft': Durative Healthcare in the Life and Poetry of John Audelay
(Language: English)
Chelsea Silva, Department of English, University of California, Riverside
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine
Paper 1220-bLosing the Will to Live?: Medical Prognosis and Pastoral Care in the Later Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Joanne Edge, Department of History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medicine
Paper 1220-cMystical and Medical Death in The Book of Margery Kempe
(Language: English)
Laura Kalas Williams, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine
Abstract

This panel is one in a series of sessions which seeks to investigate how medicine, health and wellbeing are represented in medieval literature, and how literary texts from this period contribute to training and practice in the Medical Humanities. This panel considers the boundary between life and death, the experience of sickness as spiritually-edifying, and the role of religious or monastic healthcare in the Middle Ages. Focusing on medieval medical prognostics, 'regimens for sin', and the desirability of the liminal state of mystical death, the session investigates the interaction of medicine and religion, challenging the very definition of 'health'.