ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Science and Medicine of Habits I: Habits, the Body and Space

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

These symposia will engage with scientific and medical writings on bodily habits from the medieval to the modern periods. Over the centuries, people have sought to explain the apparent regularity of bodily phenomena such as eating, sleeping and evacuating. In particular, debates emerged about the extent to which these activities are amenable to human control. When framed as habits, such phenomena may be regarded as subject to control – although deeply entrenched habits may be very hard to shift. Alternatively, viewing these phenomena as instincts may place them beyond the reach of medical or social transformation. Papers in these panels will address the subject of habit around three themes: Habits, the Body and Space; Habits, the Body and Health; Habits, the Body and Disorder. Papers will be drawn from a variety of periods to explore the extent to which supposedly automatic bodily processes may be responsive to control or shaping. Topics will include, food and eating, sex and sexuality, pain, movement, clothing, body temperature, hygiene and sleep.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Racha Kirakosian, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Individual Presentations

• Delicious Victuals: Rats & Race in Hans Sloane’s Theory of Digestion - Jacob Myers, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• The body of the Nation: hygiene and daily practices in unified Italy - Elena Badanai, University of Pisa

• Foods that Sicken, Foods that Heal: Exploring Colonial Narratives of Food and Illness in the Early Modern Mariana Islands (Northwestern Pacific) - Matilde Carbajo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Verónica Peña Filiu, Independent Scholar

• Bad Habits and Dancing Queens: Ambiguous Sex and Changing Bodies in Baroque Spain - Mónica Morado Vázquez, European University Institute

Session Organizer

• Kristin Hussey, Newcastle University