Biography

Janna Coomans is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Medieval History. She defended her dissertation (cum laude), titled “In Pursuit of a Healthy City: Sanitation and the Common Good in the Late Medieval Low Countries”, in June 2018. Her current research project explores the practices of various agents to promote communal wellbeing in the late medieval urban Low Countries. It is part of the ERC-funded interdisciplinary project “Healthscaping Urban Europe”. Her main research interests are the history of (public) health; social and urban history and more theoretical explorations of spatiality and materiality; as well as gender, medicine, crime, and urban governance.

Publications

Peer reviewed

• “The King of Dirt: Public Health and Sanitation in Late Medieval Ghent,”  Urban History (published online 18 April 2018).
• “Policing Female Food Vendors in the Late Medieval Netherlands,” Yearbook of Women’s History 36 (2017) , 97-113.
• “On the Street and in the Bathhouse: Medieval Galenism in Action?” (co-author: G. Geltner), Anuario de Estudios Medievales 43 (2013), 53-82.

Journal articles

• “De middeleeuwse stad en zijn varkens” (co-author: F. Camphuijsen), Madoc 28 (2015), 140-149.
• “Hoe vies waren de Middeleeuwen? Baden in een middeleeuwse stad,” Geschiedenis Magazine (2014, nr. 2), 45-49.
• “Varkens van de werf: Stadsreiniging in laatmiddeleeuws Utrecht,” Tijdschrift Oud Utrecht 85 (2012), 60-66.

Other

•  “A Bibliography of Works on the History of Public Health in Pre-Industrial Societies” (with Guy Geltner), online publication, annually updated.
•  Editor (with T. Smits and J.-J. Zurnée) of  Snelweg naar Rome: Een nieuwe generatie historici over het verleden (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2013).

Conference papers and presentations (selection)

• “Urban Redevelopment and Public Health in the Late Medieval Low Countries: The Production of The Meat Hall,” International Conference EAUH, Helsinki. Third place in conference essay contest.
• “Sanitation and the neighborhood in the late Medieval Netherlands,” Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis, Universiteit Antwerpen.
• “Urban Health and Fire Safety in the Late Medieval Low Countries.” Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo. Recipient of competitive travel grant.
•  “Disease Prevention in late Medieval Leiden,” Prosecuting Environmental Offenders, Invitation Workshop, Amsterdam
•  “Approaches to Public Health in Fourteenth-century Ghent.” Public Health Practices, Invitation Workshop, Villa I Tatti, Florence.

Teaching

• Crime in the Middle Ages: seminar (Geschiedenislab)
• Introduction to medieval history: seminar (werkgroep)
• BA thesis supervision
• Guest lecturer: history of premodern health and hygiene

Links