H2020Индивидуална стипендия2020–2025

MadByz · Being ‘Mad’ in Byzantium. Toward a History of Mental Disorders in Early and Middle Greek Middle Ages

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2020-10-01 → 2025-06-03
Финансиране от ЕС: 328 968 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF

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Накратко на български

Вижданията за психичните разстройства в Византия се анализират чрез медицински трактати, религиозни текстове и народни поговорки. Това помага да се разбере как средновековните гръцки лекари са развивали собствени идеи за лудостта, вместо само да повтарят античните познания.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Being ‘Mad’ in Byzantium. Toward a History of Mental Disorders in Early and Middle Greek Middle Ages

MadByz explored how the Byzantine world understood and treated mental disorders. While ancient medicine and Western medieval approaches to madness have long attracted attention, Byzantium has often been left in the shadows. This absence fostered the impression that Byzantine culture contributed little to the history of mental illness beyond accounts of possession or the simulated insanity of holy fools. MadByz challenged this view by showing that Byzantine physicians and intellectuals elaborated complex and significant ways of thinking about mental illness. Their ideas interacted with religious beliefs but were not reducible to them, opening a new chapter in the history of madness. The project asked a simple but far-reaching question: how did medical knowledge shape cultural notions of madness, and how, in turn, did everyday experiences and narratives influence scholarly categories? To answer this, it investigated four groups of sources: medical treatises, theological and philosophical writings, monastic and hospital handbooks, and collections of proverbs. By placing these, MadByz showed that Byzantium was not a transmitter of ancient medicine but a dynamic environment of reinterpretation and innovation, with a lasting impact on the longue durée of Western reflections on mental illness.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

This proposal explores Byzantine medical views on mental disorders and their impact on narratives, perceptions and experiences of mental illness in the Greek Middle Ages. The Byzantine world is most notably absent from cultural and historical surveys on madness and medicine in pre-modern societies. And yet Byzantium tells us a story worth hearing. Byzantine responses to cognitive and behavioral disorders capture the biological, psychological and social complexity of mental illness resonating with the epistemic pluralism advocated by global mental health studies. By investigating how medical concepts trickle down and affect folk concepts of madness, MadByz challenges the master narrative according to which the Greek Middle Ages understood mental illness only in supernatural terms. By contrast, this proposal argues that Byzantine naturalistic understandings of mental illness are part of a cluster of different discourses on insanity, testifying to the coexistence of varied views on mental disorders. MadByz builds on the experienced researcher’s previous research in the field of history of medicine and on “madness” in ancient times, expanding his expertise and providing new training opportunities in Byzantine Greek, Narratology and Disability Studies. By offering a systematic study of a wide array of sources, MadByz is an essential stepping-stone toward a better understanding of the history and the circulation of key scientific ideas in the Middle Ages. By engaging with the entanglements and conflicts between concepts of mental disorders, MadByz also looks at the place occupied by the mentally ill within their socio-familiar and broader institutional framework. In so doing, MadByz impacts on the way we look at the past and at the present of mental illness, questioning our views and assumptions on key issues of stigmatization and institutionalization, as well as of segregation and inclusion, which are at the heart of mental health policies promoted by the OECD and the EU

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET · Odense MКоординаторДания