Call For Papers: ‘Mental Health in the Medieval and Early Modern World’

Modern stereotypes abound regarding how mental health was perceived during the medieval and early modern period ranging from mental illness being caused by sin to the idea that the attainment of mental wellbeing could only be achieved through the balancing of the bodily humours. But mental health was a more complex and expansive subject of discourse throughout the period that was widely explored in medical treatises, religious tracts and sermons, and prominent in art and literature, which speaks to a more subtle understanding of the human mental state.

This conference aims to look at both the changing and continuing perceptions of mental health throughout the medieval and early modern period.

We welcome papers from the fields of book culture and manuscript studies, history, material culture, medicine, art, and literature, but not limited to, the following broad headings:

  • Suicide
  • Marginal lives
  • Melancholy / Depression
  • Insanity / Mental disorder
  • Rapture / Ecstasy
  • Bodily humours
  • Addiction
  • Anguish
  • Therapies
  • Meditation / Mindfulness / Well-being
  • Imagination
  • Dreams / Visions / Memory
  • Criminality
  • Self-harm
  • Solitude
  • Natural / Kind / Unnatural

Keynote speaker: Professor Yasmin Haskell (The University of Western Australia)

The conference organisers invite proposals for 20-minute papers. Please send a paper title, 250-word abstract, and a short (no more than 100-word) biography to: [email protected] by 31 May 2019.

Enquiries: [email protected]

Conference website: https://conference.pmrg.org.au