Call for Papers

The 13th Annual International Conference of the

Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval, and

Renaissance Studies

Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan

1-2 November, 2019

Between Body, Soul, Spirit and Mind: Well-Being, Malady and Remedy from Antiquity to Early Modernity

Call for Papers (Due 14 January 2019)

This conference proposes to explore questions of well-being, illness and remedy, whether corporeal, psychological or spiritual across a wide range of disciplines and cultural expressions, including art, literature, history, philosophy, religion, and medicine, with a particular emphasis on how greater understanding of the period from antiquity to early modernity can shed new light on contemporary approaches to holistic health and healing.

Throughout Antiquity, and into the Middle Ages and Premodernity, disease and its cures were invariably approached in an integrative manner, as involving corporeal, mental and spiritual well-being, both at an individual and societal level. A breakdown in harmony and balance, whether within the individual, in social relationships, or with God/the gods could lead to personal dis-ease (in the literal sense of a lack of ease), or even to mass affliction.

Literary works are a rich source of information on attitudes towards disease and its cures. In the classical period, illness is a major theme in Greek and Roman tragedy. Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio explore ideas of lovesickness, spiritual malaise, and the moral and social challenges of disease. Along with Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and the Pearl-Poet all explore the metaphorical and thematic possibilities of disease and medicine. In the Renaissance and Early Modern period, Cervantes made the consequences of old age and an unstable mind of central concern in Don Quixote. Questions of disease and remedy, both physical and psychological are to be found in many of Shakespeare’s works, while Metaphysical poets such as John Donne also consider the tension between the health of the body and of the spirit.

Suggested topics for this conference include but are not limited to:

• Disease, well-being, and cure in Classical, Medieval and Early Modern literature

• Miracle accounts from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern

• The theological and religious context of corporeal and spiritual disease and healing

• Biblical disease and healing

• Pilgrimages, shrines, relics and healing

• Well-being, malady and remedy in Classical, Medieval and Early Modern philosophy

• Medical literature from Antiquity to early-Modernity

• The history of disease and healing in the Christian and Catholic tradition

• Malady and wellness between East and West

• Environmental and ecocritical approaches to the relationship between nature and human health

• Religion and spirituality in the context of the professionalization and institutionalization of medicine

• Influence of Classical, Medieval and Early Modern traditions of disease and wellness on Modern and Post-modern culture

• Artistic portrayals of malady and healing, both corporal and spiritual

TACMRS warmly invites papers that reach beyond the traditional chronological and disciplinary borders of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies. Please send your submission package to Fu Jen Catholic University at <tacmrs2019@gmail.com> and <tacmrs.official@gmail.com> with a subject line stating “submission for the 13th TACMRS Conference” by 14 January, 2019. This year panel proposals (written and presented in either English or Chinese, in groups of 3 or 4 persons) are welcome. For the submission procedure, please note the following:

Individual proposals should include the following items:

1. Title of the paper

2. Abstract (maximum 250 words for English abstracts and 500 words for Chinese abstracts, Microsoft Word format document)

3. Brief CV with a home or office mailing address, email address, phone and fax numbers

Panel proposals should include the following items:

1. Panel description and title

2. Contact details of panel organizer

3. Titles of papers and abstracts (maximum 250 words for English abstracts and 500 words for Chinese abstracts, Microsoft Word format document) and a brief CV of each scholar

Contacts:

Secretariat TACMRS <tacmrs.official@gmail.com>

Brian Reynolds, Italian Dept., Fu Jen Catholic University

Cecilia H. C. Liu, English Dept., Fu Jen Catholic University

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