First Book Prize: Medical Misinformation in Early Modern Germany

Join CGES for our First Book Prize lecture and graduate student workshop on Friday, October 16

Our fall 2026 First Book Prize winner is Christopher Hutchinson, Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, for his book Medical Misinformation in Early Modern Germany.

Christopher Hutchinson's visit is supported by the Center for Premodern Studies at the University of Minnesota. 

Medical Misinformation in Early Modern Germany examines how doctors, writers, and printers in sixteenth-century Germany responded to the rapid expansion of print and its implications for medical knowledge. The spread of printed texts generated widespread suspicion about print’s reliability as a conduit of information and led writers to reflect on questions of audience, vernacularity, and medical authority in their responses to disease. The book investigates literary texts alongside popular vernacular medical pamphlets on the major epidemic diseases of the period––plague, syphilis, and the English sweating sickness––to reveal a widespread concern with the impact of printed texts on public health. During the 1529 outbreak of the English sweating sickness, this concern culminated in writers’ use of a “rhetoric of virality,” explicitly comparing the circulation of texts to the spread of disease, as they confronted the parallel contagions of disease and information.

The graduate student workshop will take place Friday morning from 10-11:30 am in Heller Hall 1210 and is open to students from across the disciplines. Bagels and coffee will be provided by CGES. RSVP. 

Christopher Hutchinson's book talk is open to all and will take place Friday at 12:00 pm in 710 Heller Hall 1210. Lunch will be provided by the Center for Premodern Studies. RSVP.