In this session we will be examining some of the methodological and theoretical difficulties of exploring the patient's view. Our guest, Dr Chiara Thumiger, is a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow working in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, and has recently co-edited the volume from which the readings are drawn. She has kindly offered to give a short paper (roughly 10 minutes) on the patient in antiquity before we discuss the readings and the relevance of the Graeco-Roman sickman (or, indeed, woman) for early-modern and modern historiographical scholarship.

Georgia Petridou and Chiara Thumiger, 'Introduction: towards a history of the ancient patient's view', in idem (eds), Homo Patiens: approaches to the patient in the ancient world (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 1-20.

Michael Stolberg, 'Approaches to the history of patients: from the ancient world to early-modern Europe', in Petridou and Thumiger (eds), Homo Patiens, pp. 499-518.

A light lunch will be provided.