The Lexicon of Diseases in the Middle Ages: Languages, Translations, Authors (journée d’étude)
Le vendredi 25 novembre 2022 a lieu la journée d’étude « The Lexicon of Diseases in the Middle Ages: Languages, Translations, Authors » à la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Huis Bethlehem, auditorium Wolfspoort 00.08, Schapenstraat 34, 3000 Leuven).
Argumentaire
Fully understanding the disease lexicon of the past is quite complex because it warrants an assessment of more interpretative mechanisms than today. To quote Mirko Grmek ‘Diseases don’t exist. The sick individual exists… disease is but a concept, created in a way which is not logically obligatory and exclusive’. This is particularly true of the Middle Ages when vernacular medical lexicon originated, Latin medical language evolved due to the legacy of the Late Antiquity, and the translations of medical texts from Greek to Latin and from Greek to Arabic to Latin coexisted. If naming a disease implies creating a link between res significans (the name of the disease) and res significata (the grouping of signs, symptoms and conceptions connected with a specific disease), this link may differ across historical periods and text genres. Different speakers present at the workshop will address issues related to the constitution of the disease lexicon in the Middle Ages, its originality and the conceivable polysemy of disease names. There will also be a discussion (round table) of how translations and subsequent transcriptions of disease names from one text to another as well as from one language to another have influenced the constitution of the disease lexicon.
Comité scientifique : Michèle Goyens (KU Leuven), Alessandra Foscati (KU Leuven), Brigitte Meijns (KU Leuven), Jeroen Deploige (U Gent), Kaat Wils (KU Leuven), Joris Vandendriessche (KU Leuven)
Comité d’organisation : Alessandra Foscati (KU Leuven), Michèle Goyens (KU Leuven), Jeroen Deploige (U Gent), Brigitte Meijns (KU Leuven)
Programme
9h30-9h45 : Opening of the workshop
9h45-10h30 : « The Arabic-Latin Astrological Tradition of Disease Names and Descriptions » par Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute, London)
10h30-11h15 : « Disease names in the Latin translations from Middle Ages to Renaissance » par Stefania Fortuna (Università degli Studi di Ancona)
11h15-11h45 : pause café
11h45-12h30 : « Constructing a Pathological Vocabulary in the Medical School of Salerno » par Iolanda Ventura (Università di Bologna)
12h30-14h30 : déjeuner
14h30-15h15 : « “Gręce liquoides, latine lupus id est strangulatio”. The names of the diseases in the pseudo-Galenic De spermate » par Outi Merisalo (University of Jyväskylä)
15h15-16h : « Disease lexicon in Middle Ages: Two case studies » par Alessandra Foscati (KU Leuven)
16h00-16h30 : pause café
16h30-18h00 : table robe (modératrice : Michèle Goyens)