Medical Humanities and Medieval Literature? Voices, Breath, Feeling

Speaker: Professor Corinne Saunders (University of Durham)

Medical Humanities and Medieval Literature? Voices, Breath, Feeling

Abstract: This lecture explores the new perspectives on medieval romance offered by medical humanities, drawing its inspiration from two major interdisciplinary Wellcome Trust projects based at the University of Durham, Hearing the Voice and Life of Breath. Hearing the Voice explores the phenomenon of hearing voices without external stimuli, while Life of Breath focuses on breath and breathlessness within clinical and cultural contexts.  Both breath and voice are intimately connected to the processes of mind, body and affect.  Medieval writing will be placed in the context of both medieval and modern physiological and philosophical concepts, to reveal intersections and continuities as well as contrasts.  Writers probed in creative and original ways the topics of emotion, intellect and agency, embodiment, and the influential role of feeling in processes of cognition.  A range of examples will be considered, with a particular focus on romance writing.

Corinne Saunders is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Durham, and co-director of the Centre for Medical Humanities.