"Mercurial Bloodletting: Bodily Fluids in Early Modern Alchemical Iconography"
Sergei Zotov (Warwick)
Commentator: TBC
This group provides a forum for scholarly work on the premodern period that connects histories of science, technology, and health, with histories of art, visual culture, and material culture. In order to ensure a broad range of approaches and opinions within the working group, its key terms will be broadly defined in all respects: we see "premodernity" stretching backwards from the seventeenth century to antiquity; "health" as incorporating global histories of both institutional medicine and more vernacular practices and personnel of healing; and "visual and material culture" ranging from the built environment to the smaller-scale world of images, diagrams, tools, and other technical objects.
The goal of the working group is to focus on collaborating over problems, not on polished papers. Monthly 90-minute virtual discussions focus on a pre-circulated piece of writing: book chapters, articles, position pieces, book proposals, or any other format. After a brief 5-minute introduction by the author and 10-minute commentary by a designated respondent, the rest of the session focuses on questions, discussion, and debate. We will also use this group as an opportunity to collaborate over resources, hosting a shared Google drive or similar to pool both historical, visual, and scholarly materials of relevance to group members.
Consortium Respectful Behavior Policy
Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.
Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.
Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.
Upcoming Meetings
Friday, February 14, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EST
Friday, March 14, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EDT
"'God's Gift to the People of the Orient': Coffee, Slavery, and Medicine in Early Modern Tuscany"
Lucia Dacome (University of Toronto)
Commentator: TBC
Friday, April 11, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EDT
"Quarantine in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Space, Objects, and Bodies"
Marina Inì (University of Cambridge)
Commentator: TBC
Friday, May 9, 2025, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EDT
"'Visual Prescription' in Yinshan Zhengyao: Image and Cure in Premodern and Modern China"
Di Wang (Oxford)
Commentator: TBC
Past Meetings
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Meredith Gamer (Columbia University)
“Bodies of Instruction"
Comment by Mary Fissell (John Hopkins University)
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Ben Breen (University of California, Santa Cruz)
"Colonial Magic and Contested Spaces of Healing in the Seventeenth Century Indian Ocean and Atlantic Worlds"
Comment by Philippa Carter (University of Cambridge)
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Lavinia Maddaluno (Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice)
“Practicing Public Health in Early Modern Milan: Air, Water, Rice”
Comment by Valentina Pugliano (MIT)
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Yan Liu (University at Buffalo, SUNY)
“Scent from Afar: A Transcultural History of Aromatics in Medieval China”
Comment by William Tullett (Anglia Ruskin University)
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Taylor McCall (Medieval Academy of America)
“Picturing the Dissected Female Body in Manuscripts c.1200-1500"
Comment by Robert Allen Shotwell (Ivy Tech Community College)
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SPRING BREAK
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Jack Hartnell (University of East Anglia)
Book Chapter: “1. Ambitious Figures”
Comment by Meredith Gamer (Columbia University)
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Margaret Carlyle (University of British Columbia)
"Household, Reproductive, and Personal Technologies"
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Working Group Launch
All are welcome to join this first session, which we intend very much to be a social affair and a chance to get to know each other and our shared interests a little better.
You can join the session using the Zoom link on the left-hand side of this page.
Before joining the meeting, please share an image from your recent work using our Padlet page, here: https://padlet.com/eleong5/ongy56u7vvbs6fz7
After the meeting, we will be circulating informally using Wonder. Simply follow instructions at the following link:
https://app.wonder.me/?spaceId=1e426ac5-1dfe-41cf-8ea0-7e8b93ad8c3d
Group Conveners
Jack Hartnell
Jack Hartnell is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of East Anglia, UK, where his research and teaching focus on the visual culture of late medieval and early renaissance medicine, cartography, and mathematics. In 2019–20 he was the Dibner Fellow in the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library in California. Before starting at UEA in 2017 he held positions at Columbia University, The Courtauld Institute of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin. He is the author of Medieval Bodies (Wellcome, 2018) and has a forthcoming book provisionally entitled Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Medieval Surgical Image.
Elaine Leong
Elaine Leong is Lecturer in History at University College London, UK. She is the author of Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science and the Household in Early Modern England and co-editor of Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science 1500-1800 (Ashgate, 2011), Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge (Pittsburgh, 2019) and the Cultural History of Medicine in the Renaissance (Bloomsbury, 2021). She serves as co-editor of Osiris and the Social Histories of Medicine book series at Manchester University Press. Her current projects include a book-length project provisionally titled Reading Riviére in Early Modern England and “Technologies of Health c. 1450-1750” which is funded by a Wellcome Trust University Award
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