The study of material cultures is a booming field of research whose interdisciplinary methods represent promising approaches for investigating early modern hospitals. The conference aims to explore the material equipment of hospitals with regard to the objects formerly located there as well as the manifold social, cultural, and economic practices they were tied to. Its focus lies on the genuine purpose of hospitals, i.e. the medical care for and nursing and accommodation of the sick and elderly, and the facilities deemed necessary to achieve these objectives. By adopting a comparative approach, historians are able to understand central developments and diachronic changes in hospital cultures as well as material challenges in times of crisis. Extant objects and textual and visuals sources dealing with aspects of material culture allow for vivid insights into the realities of life in an early modern hospital. Papers including (but not limited to) the following topics are warmly invited
- location and buildings (size, structure, haptics, temperature, light, sound) of hospitals which provide insights into their mode of operation but also into moral and ethical concepts of care
- furnishing of hospitals, working tools, dishes, bedding, etc., which convey information on the living standards of hospital inmates
- consumables such as food or clothes that refer to social structures in hospitals but also stigmatized the sick and were used to separate them from healthy people
- or were used to stigmatize and separate them from healthy people
- the equipment of hospitals with medical instruments, pharmacies, medicine, dressings, stretchers, etc.
- liturgical objects, but also other religious and nonreligious artefacts (devotional pictures, musical instruments, bibles, etc.) and the multiple spiritual practices they were used for
- symbols of power and objects used for administrative processes in hospitals (seals, writing equipment, account books, etc.)
- artefacts of a more ‘private’ nature or those which were in the possession of the inmates (insofar as this was permitted)
- material traces and remnants of objects left by people who worked or lived in hospitals that were intended to fix their (temporary) presence there or simply remained in hospitals und were kept for various reasons
- material endowments and their relevance for the maintenance of hospitals
Papers may focus on singular items (e.g. hospital beds in a diachronic perspective), specific object categories (medical, religious, etc.) or the material equipment of particular hospitals (also permanent or mobile military hospitals) in their entirety. In this context, we would like to discuss the question which role the respective type of hospital, the gender and age of its inmates or confessional identity played for the material equipment of hospitals with regard to their mobile and immobile objects. In addition to the types of sources already mentioned, the following are particularly likely to provide relevant information: inventories and account books of hospitals, statutes, estates, last wills, inscriptions or epigraphs, excavations, and travel reports describing hospitals. Visual depictions of hospitals illustrate multiple aspects of material culture. They convey certain ideals of the material equipment of hospitals, but also show – depending on the type of source and its historical context – existing facilities or ones that were at least common at the time. Papers should aim not so much to concentrate on artistically outstanding objects, but on object groups whose design and functions provide information about the everyday activities of the hospital and the diverse relations among the people living and working in the hospital, but also between hospital residents and people and institutions outside. Finally, we would like to know, how material objects and material settings were related to conceptions of health, illness, age and nursing concerning the hospital in question as well as Christian hospital traditions in certain regions and periods in general.
Conference languages will be German and English. Please submit an abstract of your proposed paper (300-500 words) and a short CV by July 31, 2020 to sekretariat.fruehneuzeit@ur.de.
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