Bodies on Paper: Writing Injuries and Illness into Being in Early Modern Russia

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

In early modern Russia, numerous documents record first-hand descriptions of illness, for a variety of purposes. Each of these three papers examines a different type of illness narrative, and how the varied purposes of the narrative shaped the content. This panel as a whole elucidates how early modern Russians conceived of illness, how they remembered and categorized experiences of suffering, and how they recorded those experiences for posterity.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Stefan Schneck, U of Zurich (Switzerland)

Papers

• Categorizing the Broken Body: 'Light' and 'Heavy' Wounds in Early Modern Russian Military Medical Documents - Clare Griffin, Indiana U Bloomington

• Recounting the Experiences of Illness: First-Person Narratives in Miracle Cycles - Eve Levin, U of Kansas

• Kurakin’s Complaint: The Vita as Autopathography - Ernest Alexander Zitser

Discussant

• Matthew P. Romaniello, Weber State U