Premodern Healthscaping

SASMARS has a Call for Papers for its conference, to be held 1-4 August 2024.

Proposals should consist of <250 word abstract, with <100 word author details. Papers no longer than 20 minutes.

Deadline 31 December 2023.

For more information see the pdf CfP below:

CFP_SASMARS 2024

The Sufi Studies Network, organised by Dr Milad Milani (Western Sydney University) and Dr Aydogan Kars (Monash University) will present their last talk on 3 November.

Our very own team member Aydogan will be presenting “Prophetic Medicine and Sufi Piety in Medieval Islam”, an unrecorded 30-minute talk followed by 20 minutes of Q+A.

Please contact aydogan.kars@monash.edu to join to network, and to gain access to the Zoom link.

Guy Geltner, CI for our international research project “Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World”, will present at Ghent University his presentation focusing on preindustrial mining and environmental history. As part of the specialist Medieval Seminar Series lectures.

OVERVIEW 

• When: 14.30 (Ghent local time), or 23.30 (Melbourne local time)
• Where: Ghent University, Campus UFo, Henri Pirenne Lecture Room (1st floor), Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35, 9000 Gent

Abstract: 

While industrial extraction undergirds Euro-American modernisation, globalisation, colonialism and the Anthropocene, it has deep roots in medieval Europe, and specifically in a mining boom that commenced around the late twelfth century. Beyond sketching the contours of this mostly rural and understudied phenomenon, this paper argues, first, that pre-industrial mining profoundly transformed landscapes and ecologies, casting a shadow that accompanies us to this very day; and, secondly, that the communities mining helped create responded to this process in diverse ways, including medically—by developing preventative measures to curb mining’s risks, and culturally, by revisiting their perceptions of Nature, or Creation, and humans’ place in it. Preindustrial extraction, in other words, shook the very ground upon which many communities stood, both cognitively and geochemically, yet it is a phenomenon that, outside specialists circles, remains largely unknown. In part this has to do with the type of evidence miners and their observers left behind (or didn’t), which requires a combination of methods and specialisations that sometimes sit together awkwardly. My talk will reflect on the challenges of working across history, landscape archaeology and the paleo-sciences, and the rewards of reviving rare but often typical non-elite voices from the countryside.

Next week Wednesday 13 September, Guy Geltner will present at Melbourne University as part of its HSP (History of Philosophy and Science) Seminar Series.

OVERVIEW 

• When: 12.00(Melbourne local time), 13 September 2023
• Where: Old Arts 155, The University of Melbourne

Paulus Vanius (1495) Judicium Jovis frontispiece

Abstract: This talk will present ongoing research on metal-ore mining in “preinustrial” Europe (c. 1200-1600) mainly from a social, cultural and environmental-health perspective. It examines how, following the so-called medieval mining boom of the later 12th century, new technologies and labor- and environmental hazards emerged, which communities across Europe had to contend with. In doing so they drew on, created and disseminated knowledge about Nature (or Creation) that was both innovative and conservative. Historians of science tended to attribute these forms of knowledge to Humanism and the Scientific Revolution, yet its roots and practice appear to be centuries earlier. The key to unlocking these developments, however, lies in being able to work across historical and archaeological methods, which is not always an easy path, due to the growing gap in these fields’ epistemologies.

This week, Guy Geltner will present at Monash University, “The Nature of Extraction in Preindustrial Europe”, highlighting his research on miners in preindustrial Europe.

OVERVIEW (More details here)

• When: 12.00-13.00 (Melbourne local time), 25 August 2023
• Where: Menzies Building, Monash University Clayton Campus

*For Zoom link and room details, please email sarahmay.comley@monash.edu

Abstract: As mining burgeoned across Europe from the thirteenth century on, the sector’s promoters and observers had to contend with resource management in a new key. Ore extraction differed in scale and scope from traditional practices of agriculture and animal husbandry. It was also more visibly destructive and by many accounts impacted the health of people, animals, soils and crops. But did the era’s cultural responses to landscape change amount to an environmental turn or a secularization of Creation, a phenomenon scholars tend to associate with modernization? As this paper will argue, tracing early mining history can be inspired by environmental history while challenging some of its conventions.

Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555)

We have released a photo gallery of 2023 summer fieldwork in Rocca San Silvestro, to be found in Media > Photo Gallery. A description follows, written by anthropologist and team member Serena Viva, who worked on site:

Serena showing to Rose the bone pathologies in the bioarchaeological laboratory in Villa Lanzi.

From the 3rd to the 14th of July a geochemical research campaign, carried out by the Department of History and Cultural Heritage, University of Siena, took place in the Archaeological mines park of San Silvestro. The team, guided by Professor Luisa Dallai (responsible for the topography and mineral landscape remote-sensing laboratory) realised soil analyses with the aid of a portable XRF. The samples were taken from mineral extraction areas and in some of the medieval buildings of the burg, located within the walls of the medieval castle of San Silvestro, and in proximity of the coeval extraction mines. This challenging research will attempt to shed light on the dynamics of mineral exploitation, and it will locate the presence of pollutant metals and their level of contamination on the soil which may have compromised the health status of the community at the time.

Meanwhile, the Bioarcheology laboratory carried out by Serena Viva (anthropologist), Mauro Buonincontri (archaeobotanist), and Andrea Tommolini (zooarchaeologist), has had its first two weeks. Serena is analysing the human remains of men, women and children, recovered from past archaeological excavations. These villagers were buried between the XIII and XIV centuries AD in the small graveyard in front of the church. Mauro and Andrea are studying the macro plant remains and the animal bones in order to discover husbandry practices, agricultural production, and the food quality of the medieval community. The agricultural and forest habitat exploitation research will enable us to shed light onto the evolution and ecological changes derived from anthropic activities. The laboratory continued for the rest of July.

Luisa Dallai and her team using portable XRF in a mineral cave in Lanzi Valley.

The bio & geo research project name is “Miners” and it is part of the bigger international project, “Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World”, which has the objective of studying modern age public healthcare. This study involves several universities from all around the world. Apart from the University of Siena (Italy), there are the Monash University of Melbourne (Australia), Australian Catholic University (Australia), Delhi University (India) and Leiden University (Netherlands). Each one of those will study different communities.

Meeting at the Archaeological Mines Park of San Silvestro: from the left, Monash University Phd candidate Rose Byfleet, zooarchaeologist Andrea Tommolini, anthropologist Serena Viva, and archaeobotanist Mauro Buonincontri of the University of Siena.

A photo gallery of the work, the people, and the collaborations can be found in our Media -> Photo Gallery page.

As part of our years-long research track spanning two key research projects on premodern/ preindustrial health (About Us), we provide a bibliography of “The History of Public Health in Pre-Industrial Societies”. It is constantly updated, but our last revision was in early 2022.

We’d like to open up the updating of our bibliography to fellow scholars and people who can contribute works we haven’t heard of. We have opened a Google Doc with our current bibliography, which we will be adding to. Concurrently, we invite anyone to make their own suggestions or additions – all users with access to the link have commenting privileges, which means you can make suggestions and comments for resources directly onto the document.

We will close this access on 30 September, to compile all suggestions, and republish our updated bibliography on the website and socials.

Contribute to the bibliography here.

We have set up a Mastodon account and aim to transition slowly into this federated, non-profit platform. Mastodon focuses on users’ privacy and collective governance.

Our platform is on the Humanities Commons server, which has been hosting our project portal since 2018:
https://hcommons.social/@prosanitate. 

For now we will simultaneously post on both X/Twitter and Mastodon, but hope to move our focus to the latter.

See you there!

Organised by Professor Megan Cassidy-Welch (Australian Catholic University) this symposium explores the ‘medieval body’ as a site of critical inquiry, through three ongoing research projects of disparate focuses: ‘Literature and the Face’; ‘Queer Medievalism’ and our very own project, ‘Pursuing Public Health in the Pre-industrial World’.

OVERVIEW (More details here)

• When: 09.30 (Melbourne local time), 17 August 2023
• Where: Teresa of Kolkota Building, 115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy

*Register for both online and in-person attendance by emailing julie.carpenter@acu.edu.au

Check out the Twitter profiles of the three projects @ProSanitate @LiteratureFace @Queer_Medieval
It's going to be an excellent conversation! https://t.co/wQ2MfK5FmV

— Megan Cassidy-Welch (@mcassidywelch) August 1, 2023

Flyer Medieval bodies symposium 17_8_23