Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity: New Conversations for Health Humanities

This book explores the nature and effects of disability, medicine, and health discourse in early Christian literature using contemporary theories from the health humanities. It highlights the relevance of early Christian texts to modern conversations about health and healthcare, emphasizing the social aspects of illness and the strategies for navigating them. The book offers an innovative and timely intervention in the study of health and healthcare, bridging historical studies and contemporary issues.

Format: Hardback
Length: 186 pages
Publication date: 04 August 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

In recent years, the medical turn in early Christian studies has yielded a substantial body of literature that explores health, disability, and medicine. At the same time, the health humanities have made significant contributions to contemporary discussions about the goals of health and the nature of healthcare. As a result, it has become evident that early Christian texts and ideas hold great value for modern conversations, and that these texts can be illuminated through theoretical lenses drawn from modern medicine and public health.

The chapters in this book delve into various aspects of early Christian engagement with medicine, whether viewed as a subject in its own right or as a metaphor and material for theological reflections on human impairment, restoration, and flourishing. By focusing on late antique religious texts, the book raises questions about the social rather than biological dimensions of illness and diminishment as a human experience, as well as the strategies employed to navigate such experiences.

The result of this approach is an innovative and timely intervention in the study of health and healthcare that bridges current divides between historical studies and contemporary issues. The book offers a multifaceted conversation of perspectives on aspects of care that are central to societal and individual wellness today, inviting readers to engage with patristic texts as tracings across a map of embodied identity, dissonance, and corporal care.

For anyone interested in ancient medicine and health or the social worlds of early Christianity, this book serves as a valuable resource. It provides a rich and nuanced exploration of the complex relationships between medicine, disability, and the human experience in early Christian literature, offering insights that are relevant and valuable to scholars and practitioners in these fields.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367521004