Space and the Hospital

The International Network for the History of Hospitals (INHH), the ‘Hospitalis: Hospital Architecture in Portugal at the Dawn of Modernity’, and the ‘Royal Hospital of All Saints: city and public’ health Research Projects are pleased to announce the call for papers for Space and the Hospital. The conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal from 26-28 May 2021. 

Space, in both its physical and conceptual manifestations, has been a part of how hospitals were designed, built, used, and understood within the wider community. By focusing on space, this conference aims to explore this subject through the lens of its architectural, socio-cultural, medical, economic, charitable, ideological, and public conceptualisations. 

This thirteenth INHH conference will explore the relationship between space and hospitals throughout history by examining it through the lens of five themes: (1) ritual, space, and architecture; (2) hospitals as ‘model’ spaces; (3) the impact of medical practice and theory on space; (4) hospitality and social space; (5) sponsorship. Below are more details about how the conference themes will address along with related questions. The themes and questions presented are by no means an exhaustive list; however, we encourage the submission of an abstract that examines any aspects of space and the history of hospitals in innovative ways. Please download the CfP below or go to our website for a more comprehensive outline of the proposed themes.

As with previous INHH conferences, it is intended that an edited volume of the conference papers will be published. Submissions are particularly encouraged from researchers who have not previously given a paper at an INHH conference.

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CfP for special issue: ‘Historicising the perpetrators of sexual violence: global perspectives’

Sexual violence remains one of the world’s most under-reported crimes. Victims who press charges are often subjected to painful scrutiny of their own behaviour and personal lives by medical personnel, juridical authorities and the media. Survivors of sexual violence have described their frustration at the legal process, which seems to place them rather than their attackers on trial: ‘…I feel like I was given the life sentence that he deserves’. Academic scholarship has highlighted the inadequacies of police and criminal justice systems around the world when it comes to prosecuting sexual crimes (Temkin, 1992; Corrigan, 2013). In particular, court proceedings are frequently influenced by a number of all-pervasive rape myths which place the burden of responsibility for sexual violence on the failure of victims to protect themselves (Brownmiller, 1975; Bourke, 2007). At the same time, well-meaning attempts to recognise the trauma experienced by rape victims or to empower women through the use of anti-rape technologies can reinforce emphasis on the victim as the site of rape prevention, thus displacing male responsibility for sexual violence (Mardorossian, 2002; White and McMillan, 2019).

Though it transcends historical periods, sexual violence is not inevitable or ahistorical. The perpetration, policing, and prosecution of sexual aggression are shaped by historically contingent myths and assumptions, as well as by social structures which foster the circumstances for sexual assault. Historically, the perpetrators of sexual violence have often been protected by legal systems which place the burden of proof on victims, and by patriarchal social structures in which men are more likely to occupy positions of power which can be exploited with impunity.

The Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters (SHaME) project at Birkbeck, University of London, invites article proposals that scrutinise and historicise the perpetrators of sexual violence in the modern period. The term ‘perpetrator’ is understood in a broad sense, as both the individual agent of crime as well as the institutions and social structures which facilitate

sexual violence. We are keen to include as broad a geographical and cultural range of contributions as possible, and therefore would particularly welcome proposals from contexts beyond the western, anglophone world. We also welcome submissions which adopt a range of disciplinary and methodological approaches, including from the medical humanities, psy disciplines, criminology, and history. A prestigious, peer-reviewed academic journal has been approached and has shown interest in hosting such a themed issue.

Scottish Society of the History of Medicine Conference

Aesculap Academia wish to advise you on behalf of the SSHM organising committee that the decision has been made to cancel the 2020 conference in Edinburgh.

This decision is in accordance with advice to cancel all non-essential travel and events until the end of summer.  Our aim is to maximise availability to help health services throughout this critical period and minimise any risk of actively transmitting the virus to other groups of medical professionals.

The organising committee have decided to reschedule the conference until Friday 12 and Saturday 13 March 2021.

The Threat of the Body: Salvation in Medieval Science and Medicine

1-2 July 2021, University of Edinburgh

Description: The aim of this conference is to examine the effect of routine embodiment on salvation in the Middle Ages. How might falling ill, practicing magic, or being born with a disability influence or jeopardise salvation? In a world where the effects of the body might have spiritual consequences, the Middle Ages offers promising scope for the exploration of the history of medicine and theology. This conference specifically addresses the tensions between salvation and embodiment surrounding the ebb and flow of daily life.

During the Middle Ages, the body’s deviation from normalcy through illness, pregnancy, infertility, or disease, would influence spiritual health. How might contracting leprosy, a well-known symbol of sin, influence salvation? As such, this conference specifically looks at how medical remedies might be employed to counter the harm to the body as well as to the soul. This conference analyses the relationship between soul-health and embodiment through the lenses of literature, history, theology, medicine, and science.

Suggested Topics

• Pregnancy
• Infertility
• Breathing
• Bathing
• Practising magic
• Abnormal births and monstrosity
• Disability
• Ageing
• Sleeping
• Intercourse
• Disease
• Disfigurement
• Plague
• Aliens and outsiders
• Influence of cosmology or alchemy

Funding: This conference has been funded by the Edinburgh’s Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the Society for the Social History of Medicine, and the Social History Society. Please contact Natalie Goodison for postgraduate travel bursaries.

Outputs: Publication of conference proceedings is intended.

Covid-19: Initial expressions of interests are welcome. We hope for the conference to take place in person in a safe environment with plenty of space to socially distance. However alternative arrangements, such as hybrid models for both the online and the physical delivery of papers, may be necessary. Given the global pandemic, plans are also subject to change.

Organiser: This conference is organised by Dr. Natalie Goodison, who was a Junior Anniversary Fellow at IASH, University of Edinburgh. She is a specialist on embodiment in medieval romance. Her project at IASH focused on women’s sexual lives, salvation, and birthing abnormal offspring.