CfP: for Sponsored Sessions at the 2026 RSA

Politics, Power, Patronage: Funding Medicine and Science in the Renaissance 

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers that consider the entanglements that bound financial or political capital to the production of medical or scientific knowledge in the Renaissance. Papers may consider how Renaissance practitioners navigated these entanglements: how they weathered changing dynastic or political regimes; how they leveraged their knowledge-making in service to private or corporate enterprise; or, how they sought to insulate the endeavor of knowledge-making from the instability of these systems of power. Alternatively, they might explore knowledge-making practices that resisted the disciplining forces of politics, power, and patronage, or examine Renaissance practitioners who participated in or imagined knowledge-making outside of these structures. Finally, papers might survey the material legacies of these entanglements: how did the production or deployment of scientific objects, illustrations, or instruments make visible the negotiated relationship between knowledge, money, and power? (More info on submissions here.)

 

Medicine and Science in the Early Modern Pacific I: Latin American and Asian Connections, co-organized with Sebestian Kroupa (McGill)

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers attending to the importance of Latin America and Asia-Pacific Worlds to the development of Renaissance-era medical and scientific knowledge. With the establishment of the Manila-Acapulco galleon route in the late sixteenth century, the Pacific crossing joined the world at the seams, becoming a crucial conduit in increasingly global movements of people, goods, and knowledge. These exchanges were shaped by interactions among a multiethnic cast of actors, including European colonisers, Indigenous agents, Chinese merchants, Islamic seafarers, religious missionaries, and enslaved labourers. This panel seeks to broaden the geographical focus of the Pacific Ocean to incorporate the worlds of both the Pacific and Maritime Southeast Asia and beyond, including Latin America. This wider scope will allow for an exciting, boundary-shifting dialogue between Pacific, Asian, and Latin American historians. Papers that emphasize Indigenous knowledges and challenge the dominance of European epistemologies in the history and practice of medicine and science are especially welcome, as are papers that consider the material and cultural aspects of the production of medical and scientific knowledge. (More info on submissions here.)

 

Medicine and Science in the Early Modern Pacific II: Indo-Pacific Worlds, co-organized with Wenrui Zhao (Utah)

This CFP invites proposals for 15- to 20-minute papers that explore Renaissance science and medicine through the lens of the Indian and Pacific Ocean worlds. Precious metals aboard Spanish galleons flew through Manila, along with mining and metallurgical knowledge. European medical practitioners encountered unfamiliar diseases and diverse healing traditions while cultivating and experimenting with a variety of materia medica. Moreover, knowledge-making in this vast, interconnected space involved a wide array of actors, such as missionaries, merchants, artisans, healers, and sailors. Europe’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific region was shaped by trade, religious missions, political conquest, and voluntary and involuntary migration. While these connections fostered the production of scientific and medical knowledge, they also entailed processes of appropriation and erasure of knowledge systems. Topics may include but are by no means limited to: the roles of visual and material cultures in medical and scientific knowledge-making; the relationship between indigenous knowledge and European epistemologies; networks of collaboration and exchange; political economies and labor conditions underpinning knowledge production. (More info on submissions here.)