* CFP: ‘HOMO PATIENS: Approaches to the patient in the ancient world’

Seen on the Classicists list:

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Conference: ‘HOMO PATIENS: Approaches to the patient in the
ancient world’
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 29.06.2012-01.07.2012

This meeting aims at bringing together not only classicists and historians
of medicine but also medical anthropologists and medical practitioners to
discuss the figure of the ‘patient’ in ancient medicine. In particular,
this meeting aims at shifting the focus from the ancient doctors’
authoritative discourses about their profession, knowledge, theories and
practices to reconstruct, to whatever extent this is possible, the role,
position and experience of the patient.
The focus of this meeting is primarily the classical and post-classical
medical texts and artifacts of Greece and Rome. However, we would also
like to receive papers on comparative aspects of the role and the position
of the patient in the classical and post-classical worlds with reference
to, for instance, Chinese or Near Eastern medical texts and artifacts
(although always with Greece and Rome as comparandum). Our definition of
medical text and artifact is a broad one: any piece of text (to include
papyri and inscriptions) or pieces of material culture which can throw
light on the underrated part of the patient in the healing experience is
of relevance here. We welcome contributions (ca. 30 minutes) primarily
(but not exclusively) on the following issues:

1. The role of the patient in ancient medical texts and artifacts
2. The role of consolation (paramythía) in ancient medicine
3. The patient’s responsibility for choosing the best physician and
the criteria for this choice
4. Case histories and “characters”: patients in Hippocratic and
Galenic texts, their similarities and differences
5. The patient as ‘argument’: patients and their illnesses in the
Hippocratic and Galenic corpus
6. Ready obedience (eupeítheia-hypakoê) and the patient’s admiration
for the doctor as factors of (un)successful treatment
7. Ancient ‘autopathographies’
8. Ethics, etiquette and bed-side manners and their role in the
therapeutic process
9. The emotions of the patient about their own illnesses: depression,
hope and despair, shame and embarrassment, guilt, etc.
10. Material aspects of the patient-doctor relationship: the fees of
the doctor and his professional accountability
11. Gender issues and social status in the patient-doctor relationship
12. Empathy with the patient in the medical writers
13. The patient’s self-image (e.g. the ‘hypochondriac’ patient, and so
on)

Our confirmed keynote speakers are Prof. Manfred Horstmanshoff
(Internationales Kolleg Morphomata, University of Cologne, DE), Prof.
Helen King (Open University, UK), Prof. Susan Mattern (University of
Georgia, USA), and Prof. John M. Wilkins (University of Exeter, UK).

We welcome titles and abstracts of 300 words maximum on any of the listed
topic (or other related subjects). The deadline is 1st November 2011 at
the latest. Please send your abstracts or enquiries, along with a short
bio, to the organizers:

Chiara Thumiger (chiara.thumiger AT hu-berlin.de)
Georgia Petridou (georgia.petridou AT hu-berlin.de)