STS Seminar Series 2011-12
Department of Science and Technology Studies University College London
All seminars take place at 5.00pm
Venue: Galton Lecture Theatre, 1-19 Torrington Place http://www.ucl.ac.uk/locations/ucl-maps
Monday 12 December
Bill MacLehose
(STS, UCL)
This talk is part of a larger project on medieval concepts of sleep and the relations between body and mind. Instead of the single, solid divide between sleeping and waking which Aristotle had advocated, medical writers tended to envision a spectrum of states that blurred the categories not only of sleep and wakefulness but also of reason and irrationality and of physiological health and pathology. Medieval theorists created a typology of states that moved between and beyond such basic binary divisions. In the process, sleep became a category of increased moral and medical concern from the twelfth century onward.
This talk examines a variety of diseases or pathological states, such as sleepwalking, lethargy, insomnia, and others, in order to explore medieval understandings of the connections between mental and physical functioning.
Dr. Chiara Ambrosio
Teaching Fellow in Philosophy of Science Department of Science and Technology Studies University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT
Tel. (+44) 02076790166
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/ambrosio
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/basc/
