Phantomology: From soul to brain - Medieval Studies meets neuroscience Professor Alastair Minnis, Yale University and Professor Peter Brugger, University of Zurich

Event details

York Medieval Lecture 

This joint lecture shall investigate what the speakers are calling 'phantomology',  ranging from medieval theology to modern neuroscience. Alastair Minnis will explain how St Augustine and some successors argued for the existence of a body-in-the-soul, as revealed in out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Some thinkers believed that this explained how, after death, people could continue to experience pain (in hell and purgatory) or pleasure (in heaven). Peter Brugger shall proceed to delineate stages of modern 'soul research', defining phantomology as the science of the body-in-the-brain, i.e. of a representation of corporeality as manifesting in phantom limbs, phantom doubles, and 'phantom vision' in OBEs. Neuroimaging studies will also be considered, but clinical observations will be emphasized. In this way, Medieval Studies shall be put in creative conversation with contemporary neuroscience and clinical practice.

Please register on Eventbrite to attend in-person. 

Please register on Zoom to attend online.

Attendees are welcome to read three articles provided by the speakers ahead of the lecture:
Brugger 2006 Phantom limb&body (PDF , 2,978kb)
Brugger et al 2000 beyond re-membering (PDF , 329kb)
Minnis, phantom_pains_and_prosthetic_narratives (PDF , 2,469kb)

Sponsored by the Centre for Medieval Studies (York), Fordham Center for Medieval Studies, Henry Pirenne Institute of Medieval Studies (Ghent), Centre for Medieval Literature (York and Odense) and Universidade Santiago de Compostela

About the speakers