The Healing Art: Early Modern Practices of Giving and Receiving Care

Speaker: Mandy Fowler, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (English and Comparative Literature)

Early Modern Economies of Care, explores practices of giving and receiving care as they existed in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. In this presentation, Mandy will share insights from their research as the 2022-2023 McLendon-Thomas Award Fellow with the Wilson Library Rare Books Collection. As a Fellow, Mandy used a variety of materials, including medical guides for physicians and household caregivers, familial letters and legal documents, and other printed or manuscript texts to better understand the complexities of caregiving from the perspectives of both the givers and receivers of care. Mandy’s research pays particular attention to the ways in which materiality and social dynamics influenced early modern approaches to care.

Register for the event on the Bullitt History of Medicine Club website.