2022 SBL – ReMeDHe Co-Sponsored Sessions
S19- 126 Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Theme: Medical Knowledge and Practice
David Schones, Austin College, Presiding
Lennart Lehmhaus, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Rabbinic Healing: Intertwining Religious and Medical Perspectives Susan Holman, Valparaiso University Rx for Mad Monks: Curative Hesychasm or Prison? Ilona Rashkow, Stony Brook University “Ones Who Have Fallen Out” (נֵ֫פֶל): Spontaneous, Accidental, and Intentional Miscarriage Laws in the Ancient Near East Joseph (Sang Wuk) Lee, Yale University To Eat or Not to Eat? A Re-proposal of the “Strong” and “Weak” in Romans 14:1–15:13
First Book Workshop 2022 – June 28th
The workshop gives one or two early-career scholars the opportunity to receive feedback on their dissertation (or draft of their first book), as well as tips on publication, from senior and junior colleagues who work on similar topics, sources, and questions. The overall goal of the workshop is to strengthen emerging scholarship on health, healing, and medicine, as well as to support junior scholars working at this disciplinary intersection. This year’s workshop featured the project proposal of author Tara Mulder (University of British Columbia).
ReMeDHe Standalone Conference
May 24th- 25th, 2021
Conference Schedule Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JZT-3onjDkc1WuL03Pk04KrptDtHxmWik3es90z_01s/edit
First Book Workshop 2020 – May 20th and 22nd
The workshop gives one or two early-career scholars the opportunity to receive feedback on their dissertation (or draft of their first book), as well as tips on publication, from senior and junior colleagues who work on similar topics, sources, and questions. The overall goal of the workshop is to strengthen emerging scholarship on health, healing, and medicine, as well as to support junior scholars working at this disciplinary intersection. This year’s workshop featured the project proposals of authors Shuli Shinnar (Columbia University) and Elisa Groff (University of London).
2019 SBL – ReMeDHe Co-Sponsored Sessions
Book Review Panel of Candida R. Moss, Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity.
Brenda Ihssen, Pacific Lutheran University, Presiding
Christoph Markschies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin – Humboldt University of Berlin, Panelist
Laura Zucconi, Stockton University, Panelist
Hector Avalos, Iowa State University, Panelist
Candida Moss, University of Birmingham, Panelist
Session: “Senses, Cultures, and Biblical Worlds / Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World / Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity.”
Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, Liverpool Hope University, Presiding
Andrew M. Langford, University of Oregon: “They pierced themselves with many pains”: Pain Experience and the Rhetoric of Self-Harm in 1 Timothy
Erin Galgay Walsh, Duke University: Giving Voice to Pain: Poetic Representations of the Hemorrhaging Woman
Jonathan L Zecher, Australian Catholic University: Hermeneutics of Mental Pain and the Organization of Emotions in Late Antique Asceticism
Helen Rhee, Westmont College: Pain’s Sharability and Sociality in the Writings of Gregory Nazianzen and Augustine
Lennart Lehmhaus, Freie Universität Berlin Talmudic Torment: Jewish Discourse on Pain and Suffering between Medicine and Martyrdom
Work In Progress Workshop: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World.
Julia Lillis, Union Theological Seminary, Presiding
Timothy Hyun, Faith International University and Seminary: Job’s Dialogic Body and Disability
Rebecca Raphael, Respondent
Christopher Stanley, Saint Bonaventure University: Paul and Asklepios: The Greco-Roman Quest for Healing and the Mission of Paul
John Penniman, Bucknell University, Respondent
Session: Healing and Disability in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East
Anna Rebecca Solevåg, VID Specialized University, Presiding
Ilona Rashkow SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook University: Medicine in the Ancient Near East: “Magic” and Religious Healing (Asu, Ashipu, and God/gods)
Kirsty Jones, Georgetown University: Looking, Lusting, Loving: Samson’s Sight and Blindness
Seonghyun Choi, Yale Divinity School: The Language of Hearing and Seeing in 1 Samuel 1–3: Understanding Disability
Mihi Yang, Sookmyung Womens University: Comparison between Hezekiah’s and Ancient Syriac-Mesopotamian’s Healing
LaToya M. Leary, Florida State University: Disability, Masculinity, and Access in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts
Session: Healthcare and Disability in Early Christianity
Chris de Wet, University of South Africa, Presiding
Tara Baldrick-Morrone, Florida State University: Lost to the Bosom of the Church: Abortion as Differentiation and Slander in Ancient Christian Texts
Jenn Strawbridge, University of Oxford: The Missing Dimensions of Sightlessness in New Testament Studies
Andrew Crislip, Virginia Commonwealth University: Pain and Emotion in Early Christianity
2019 Oxford Patristics Conference ReMeDHe Sponsored Sessions
Session: “Ordering Knowledge and Modes of Knowing in Ascetic Theory and Practice.”
Chair: Jonathan Zecher; Discussant: N/A.
Julien Delhez: The Bible, the Monastic Fathers, and the Road towards Wisdom: Transmission and organisation of knowledge in Shenoute’s Canons
Piwowarczyk Przemyslaw: Modes of knowing among Coptic monks of Western Thebes
Matthew Hale: Meaning, Self-Transcendence, and Conversion in St. Maximus the Confessor’s Account of Theoria
Eric Lopez: Ascetic Knowledge and Anagogical Knowing in Maximus the Confessor
Inbar Graiver: The Late Antique Roots of Introspection: Producing and Ordering Psychological Knowledge in Monastic Communities
Jonathan Zecher: Byzantine Monastic Anthologies and the Organization of Tradition
Session: “Disability Discourse, Embodiment, and Healing: Intersecting Christian Antiquity and Modern Health Care (1).”
Chair: Susan Holman; Discussant: Brenda Llewellyn-Ihssen. (two sessions)
Candace Buckner: A Healing Vision: Elements of the Greco-Roman Miraculous Healing Tradition in the Coptic Life of Onnophrius
Kylie Crabbe: Disability, economic hardship, and mercy: The multilayered story of a father and his sons in the Acts of John
Elisa Groff: To Be, or Not to Be Sterile: that is a Question of Wellbeing in the Sixth Century AD
Anna Rebecca Solevåg: Medical Metaphors in Ignatius’ Letters
Respondent: Andrew Crislip
Session: “Disability Discourse (2)”
Helen Rhee: Pain at the Intersection of Ancient Medicine and Early Christianity: Paradox of Agency and Insharability
Susan Holman: Shaping Water: Public Health and the ‘Medicine of Mortality’ in Late Antiquity
Chris de Wet: Medical Discourse, Identity Formation, and Otherness in Late Ancient Christianity
Respondent: Brenda Llewellyn-Ihssen
North American Patristics Society, Annual Meeting, May 2018, Chicago
Pre-Conference Workshop: Publishing Panel on Journal Articles, Monographs, and Edited Volumes
Thursday May 24th, 9am-noon
Chairs: Heidi Marx (University of Manitoba) and Wendy Mayer (Australian Lutheran College)
ReMeDHe sponsored panel discussion about the ins and outs of publishing on topics related to Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health and Healing in Late Antiquity. ReMeDHe assembled a panel of editors and representatives from various presses to answer pressing questions about the publishing process. The morning was divided between discussion of publishing in peer reviewed journals and book publishing, both in terms of monographs and edited collections.
First Book Workshop
Wednesday May 23rd, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The workshop gives one or two early-career scholars the opportunity to receive feedback on their dissertation (or draft of their first book), as well as tips on publication, from senior and junior colleagues who work on similar topics, sources, and questions. The overall goal of the workshop is to strengthen emerging scholarship on health, healing, and medicine, as well as to support junior scholars working at this disciplinary intersection. This year’s workshop featured the project proposal of Mark Anderson (Loyola Marymount University) and Stefan Hodges-Kluck (University of Tennessee, Knoxville).
ReMeDHe session I (Chair, Mark Anderson, California State University, San Bernardino)
Candace Buckner-Double, “Blindness: Race, Disability, and Conversion in the Life of Aaron
Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, “Marking the Martyr: A Tale of Two Stephens”
Myrick Shinall, “Basil’s Hospital and the Conflation of Poverty and Illness”
Shulamit Shinnar, “Leprosy, the Etiology of Illness, and Late Antique Rabbinic Public Health Practices: Discourse on Skin Afflictions in Leviticus Rabbah“
ReMeDHe session II (Chair: Chris De Wet, University of South Africa)
Anne Kreps, “Who Knew Healthcare Could be so Complicated? Ancient Medicine and the Formation of Christian Heresy”
Helen Rhee, “Christian Paideia: The Therapeia for Greek Madness in Theodoret of Syrrhus”
Ulrich Volp, “Steps of Mourning and the Intelligence of Emotions: Observations on Fourth-Century Christian Funeral Orations”
Jessica Wright, “Animal Models for the Human Brain: Negotiating Comparative Anatomy in Arguments for Divine Providence”
2017 SBL (November): ReMeDHe Co-Sponsored Sessions:
Book Review and Discussion of Moss and Baden’s Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness and Melcher, Parsons and Yong’s Disability and the Bible: a Commentary.
Laura Zucconi, Stockton University, Presiding
Panelists: Hector Avalos (Iowa State University), Jeremy Schipper (Temple University), Candida Moss (University of Birmingham), Joel Baden (Yale University), Anna Rebecca Solevåg (VID Specialized University), Noah Buchholz (Princeton Theological Seminary), David Watson (United Theological Seminary)
Research Collaboration: Dissertation Prospectus Round Table Discussion.
Julia Lillis, Duke University, Presiding
Candida Moss, University of Birmingham, Presiding
David A. Schones, Southern Methodist University: Toward a Hermeneutic of Reproduction: 1 Samuel 1:1-2:10 from a Disability Social Scientific Perspective
Laurel Taylor, Eden Theological Seminary, Respondent
Tara Baldrick-Morrone, Florida State University: The Conception of the Past: Twentieth-Century American Reimaginings of Abortion in Antiquity
Bernadette Brooten, Brandeis University, Respondent
Session 20: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World.
Andrew Crislip, Virginia Commonwealth University, Presiding
Matthew D Niemi, Indiana University (Bloomington): Touching the Tsinnor: New Images of David as Merciful Shofet
Ilona Rashkow, Stony Brook University: “I Am the Lord Who Heals You”: Health and Healing in Ancient Israel
Ken Holder, Brite Divinity: The Surrogate Victim as Evidenced in Diseased Persons in the New Testament
Andrew M. Langford, University of Chicago: The Curious Case of the Cauterized Conscience: Pathology and Polemic in 1 Timothy
Charles J. Schmidt, Rice University: The Physiology of Salvation: The Use of Medical Theories in Simonian, Naassene, and Peratic Constructions of the Human Body
North American Patristics Society, Annual Meeting, May 2017, Chicago
Pre-Conference Workshop: “ReMeDHe Pedagogy Workshop: Teaching Medicine and Religion in Late Antiquity.”
Chairs: Jared Secord, Washington State University; Jessica Wright, University of Southern California; and Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College.
Session 6D: “Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health and Healing in Late Antiquity I: Intersections between Asceticism and Medicine in Late Ancient Christianity.”
Chair: Stefan Hodges-Kluck, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Jonathan Zecher, University of Houston: “‘Does medicine agree with the aims of piety?’: Toward a Re-evaluation of Ascetic Ambivalence to Medicine”
Elisa Groff, University of Exeter: “Out of Sight Out of Mind: Asceticism as Medical Treatment for Hypersexual Disorders in St Mary of Egypt”
Heidi Marx-Wolf / Heather Penner, University of Manitoba: “Suppurative Wounds and Necrotic Limbs: from Ancient Medical Discourse to Christian Hagiography”
Chris De Wet, University of South Africa: “God’s Askēsis: Medical and Cultural Discourses of Old Age in Early Christian Literature
Session 7D: “Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health and Healing in Late Antiquity II: Early Christian Psychagogy and Care of the Soul.”
Chair: Maria Doerfler, Yale University.
Wendy Mayer, Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity: “John Chrysostom, Neuroscience and the Jews”
Naoki Kamimura, Tokyo Gakugei University: “Tertullian’s Approach to Medicine and the Care of Souls”
Junghun Bae, Australian Catholic University: “Fear, Hope and Almsgiving: Revisiting John Chrysostom’s Approach to Redemptive Almsgiving”
Jessica Wright, University of Southern California: “The Brain is the Treasury of the Marrow: Medicine and Economy in Theodoret of Cyrrhus”
Session 10E: “Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health and Healing in Late Antiquity III: Religion, Medicine, Health and Disability in Early Christianity.”
Chair: Mark Anderson, California State University, San Bernardino.
Ashley Edewaard, University of Notre Dame: “Combative Digestion and Clement of Alexandria’s Rationale for Moderate Eating”
Candace Buckner, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: “Made in an Imperfect Image: Ethnicity, Disability, and Infirmity in the Life of Aphou”
Andrew Langford, University of Chicago Divinity School: “Cauterized Conscience: Medical Metaphor and Medical Practice in Historical Perspective”
North American Patristics Society, Annual Meeting, May 2016, Chicago
Pre-Conference Workshop 1: “Religion and Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity.” Chairs: Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba, and Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College.
Session 4E: “Religion and Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity, I.”
Chair: Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College.
Anna Rebecca Solevåg, Providence College: “Judas’ Deserving Disability
Geoffery Smith, University of Texas at Austin “Metaphor and Meaning in Tertullian’s Scorpiace”
Ashley Edewaard, University of Notre Dame: “The Faculties of Foods: Clement of Alexandria and Hippocrates’ On Affections”
Sarah Moravsik, The Catholic University of America: “Nutrition and Angelic Intervention in Medical Treatment: Origen’s Contra Celsum 8:24-32 and Philocalia 12”
Session 6E: “Religion and Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity, II.”
Chair: Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba.
Jared Secord, University of Chicago: “The Celibate Athlete: Christian and Medical Perspectives on Abstinence from Sex in the Second and Third Centuries”
Marianne Djuth, Canisius College: “The Cure of the Body in Augustine’s Early Works”
Jessica Wright, Princeton University: “Preaching Phrenitis: The Medicalization of Religious Difference in Augustine’s Sermons”
Session 7E: “Religion and Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity, III.”
Chair: Jessica Wright, Princeton University.
Niki Clements, Rice University: “Demons, Depression, and the Dangers of Naps: Depathologizing Akedia with John Cassian”
Thomas Arentzen, University of Oslo: “Deformed Bodies in Late Ancient Hymns”
John Penniman, Bucknell University: “St. Gregory and the Broken Bones: Eucharist as Bodily Remedy in the Catechetical Oration”
North American Patristics Society, Annual Meeting, May 2014, Chicago
Pre-Conference Workshop: “Religion and Medicine, Health, Healing, Disease, and Disability in Late Antiquity.”
Chairs: Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba, and Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College.
Session 15: “The Role of Medicine and Health in the Making of Christian Subjects.”
Organizers: Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College, and Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba. Chair: Kristi Upson-Saia.
Phillip Webster, University of Pennsylvania: “Diagnose and Heal: The Sick Soul in Clement of Alexandria”
David Woodington, University of Notre Dame: “Healing the Empire: The Rhetoric of Disease in Maternus”
Allison Ralph, Catholic University of America: “Constantine and Coercion for the Health of Society”
Session 44: “Medicalizing the Early Christian Body and Soul.”
Organizers: Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College, and Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba.
Chair: Maria Doerfler, Duke Divinity School.
Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba: “Porphyry and Galen on the Ensoulment of Embryos: Religion, Medicine, and Philosophy in Late Antiquity”
Wendy Mayer, Australian Catholic University: “Chrysostom’s Last Word on Treating the Soul”
Jessica Wright, Princeton University: “Mental and Affective Disorders in Fourth-Century Medicine and Theology”
Liza Anderson, Yale University: “Mysticism and Medicine in John of Apamea”
Session 73: “Evaluating Physical Deformities, Illness, Suffering, and Death.”
Organizers: Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College, and Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of Manitoba.
Chair: Scott Johnson, Dumbarton Oaks and Georgetown University.
Kayla Reish, Wheaton College: “‘The Lame Run into the Church’: Cyprian and Disabilities”
Peter Anthony Mena, Drew University: “Suffering Saintliness: The Ailing Body and the Desert Community”
Ellen Muehlberger, University of Michigan: “Learning to Die: Jacob of Sarug on the Experience of Death”
ReMeDHe 