CfP: Health and Work in Early Modern World, 1500-1750ca. September 20-21 2022 at Ca'Foscari University of Venice

This conference aims to bring together scholars working on any aspect of the relationship between health and work in the early modern period. A growing field of scholarship on health and medicine has examined how people cared for their own health, looking at how patients experienced and recovered from disease, interacted with multiple medical practitioners, and altered their domestic environment to improve health. In the period developing public health procedures were directed at industries and jobs that could cause harm to health. Meanwhile, the subject of work in the early modern period is the focus of new scholarship that broadens the scope of analysis to include previously overlooked and marginalised workers. By drawing these strands together to view working lives through the lens of health in a period of technological change, advances in medical sciences, and fewer yet still devastating epidemics, the conference will explore new ways of understanding health and ill-health, perceptions of work, and the practicalities of working life in early modern society.

Ill-health is broadly conceived, encompassing chronic illness, bouts of ill-health, injury, and periods of epidemic disease.

Papers may include but are not limited to:

• Medical advice
• Preventative measures to protect workers
• Disability and work
• Environmental impact on working locations

The keynote lecture will be given by Paola Bertucci, Yale University.

Papers should be 25 minutes in length. Please send abstracts of 200 words and a brief biography to Marie-Louise Leonard. This will be a hybrid event. Please indicate if you would like to attend in person or online. Bursaries are available for PhD students, early career scholars, and academics in precarious employment.

Deadline for submissions is 10th June.