Susan L’Engle, Assistant Director of the Vatican Film Library at St Louis University, has put out a call for papers to be presented at the 44th Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, which will be held on 13-14 October 2017. She is looking to put together a panel that will complement the work of the plenary speaker, Dr. Marianna Shreve Simpson. There is no special call for medical topics, but it seems there would certainly be scope to develop such a focus.
Here is her call:
I always try to have a panel each year complementary to the guest speaker’s area of expertise, and so I am seeking scholars who could focus on some aspect of Islamic manuscripts. Dr. Simpson has indicated some current hot topics that include the illumination of the Qur'an (occasioned by the current exhibition in Washington), “dialogues” (as it was put at the 5th Biennial Symposium of the Historians of Islamic Art Association) between and among early modern manuscript cultures (e.g., Safavid, Ottoman, Mughal), regional styles, the movement of manuscripts, and the formation of manuscript collections. I would welcome proposals on any of these, or ideas of your own. It seems to me that the topics above would easily extend to two panels, and I would be delighted to receive proposals to organize panels or to submit individual papers. Additionally, proposals for panels on Mughal or Indian manuscripts/collections would be very welcome. Please send individual or collective proposals by March 1, 2017 to lengles@slu.edu .
Also of possible interest is a session being organized by Sabine Utz (University of Geneva) on the topic of "Editing the Antique: Copies of Illustrated Antique and Late Antique Manuscripts between 800 and 1200.” She explicitly mentions medical texts among the topics of interest. A description can found on p. 1 of the latest issue of Manuscripts on My Mind: http://lib.slu.edu/files/special-collections/publications/vfl-newsletter-no-20.pdf.
Those MEDMED-L folk who are interested in manuscripts studies generally may be interested in signing up for Susan L’Engle’s quarterly newsletter, Manuscripts on My Mind. It is available open-access at this link: http://lib.slu.edu/special-collections/publications/manuscripts-on-my-mind.