Working Group: Beauty Studies in the Premodern World

The Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine has a new working group: Beauty Studies in the Premodern World. The group offers a transdisciplinary forum to explore the cultural histories of beautification and bodily care in the premodern world, examining beauty practices as historically significant forms of knowledge related to health, hygiene, status, and identity. The Working Group will meet once a month.

For registration, see here: https://www.chstm.org/group/beauty-studies-premodern-world

We are delighted to start with a reading seminar with Evelyn Welch (University of Bristol): ‘Whose Hair is it Anyway? Beauty, Health and Shaven Heads in Early Modern Europe’. This is based on Chapter 5 of Renaissance Skin (Manchester University Press, 2025). The full book is available open access here.

This will be on 13 October at 1:00 pm UK time / 2:00 pm CEST. The meeting link is available via the CHSTM website after you register.

We very much hope to see some of you there. Please share this to any of your colleagues that might be interested.

There are two more talks scheduled for 2025:

Monday, November 10, 2025, 1pm UK time/2pm CET
Seminar with Katharina Seidl (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna / Ambras Castle, Innsbruck) on the “The Art of Beauty exhibition” at Ambras Castle, Innsbruck (June-October 2025)

Monday, December 8, 2025, 1pm UK time/2pm CET
Reading seminar with Erin Griffey (University of Auckland) on her book Facing Decay: Beauty, Aging and Cosmetics in Early Modern Europe (Penn State University Press, 2025)

On behalf of,
Erin Griffey, Montserrat Cabré, and Romana Sammern