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)
The Sliding Scale of Sleep in The Middle Ages
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/
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