Call for Papers
Medieval Landscapes of Disease
50th International Congress of Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI — May 14-17, 2015
In recognition that diseases are manifestations of their environment, this session seeks papers that place medieval diseases within their environmental context. Just as a seed must be placed in good soil to grow, infectious disease requires a permissive environment to develop into an epidemic (or epizootic) and an ideal environment to bloom into a pandemic or panzootic. I am open to all manner of studies and disciplines that address these issues.
Examples of acceptable topics:
- Historic impacts of epidemics and/or epizootics
- Endemic disease in medieval environments
- Environmental causes of disease such as malnutrition or industrial pollution related disease
- Health effects of human-animal interactions
- Archaeological assessments of human health and disease
- Landscape alterations intended to improve human or animal health
- Ecology of the built environment
Abstracts of no more than 300 words and the Participant Information Form should be sent to Michelle Ziegler at ZieglerM@slu.edu by September 15. Pre-submission queries are welcome.
The Participant Information Form and additional information be found at http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.
Heavenfield 
It is so good/invigorating to see important work happening, like this!