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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 316: Climates of Fear, II: The Dead and Undead

Monday 5 July 2021, 16.30-18.00

Organisers:Joanne Edge, Department of History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Jude Seal, Independent Scholar, York
Moderator/Chair:Joanne Edge, Department of History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Paper 316-aRaised from the Dead: A Typology of Some 15th-Century Resurrection Miracles
(Language: English)
Jyrki Nissi, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Tampere
Index terms: Hagiography, Medicine
Paper 316-b'The clippes of the son', or, an Otherworldly Mother: The Climate of Late Medieval Female Conduct in Awntyrs off Arthur
(Language: English)
Kara Stone, Department of English, Fordham University
Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Sexuality, Women's Studies
Abstract

In the popular imagination the Middle Ages was a time where fear of the supernatural characterised the entire era. There have been many inaccurate descriptions of the Middle Ages as part of the fictional 'Dark Ages' where science and learning stagnated, medicine was a combination of herbalism, religion, and superstition, and women were arbitrarily executed by burning. However, medicine and science were not forgotten, nor was there widespread suppression of scientific learning. But advances that were made took place in a climate of fear. Religion, science, medicine, and magic were not distinct entities as they are in the modern day.