The Middle Ages was an era of dynamic social transformation, and notions of disability in medieval culture reflected how norms and forms of embodiment interacted with gender, class, and race, among other dimensions of human difference. Ideas of disability in courtly romance, saints' lives, chronicles, sagas, secular lyrics, dramas, and pageants demonstrate the nuanced, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between cultural constructions of disability and the lived experience of impairment.
An essential resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, literature, visual art, cultural studies, and education, A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages explores themes and topics such as atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health.
Author(s): Jonathan Hsy, Tory V. Pearman, Joshua R. Eyler
Series: The Cultural Histories Series
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 199
City: London
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Series Preface
Introduction: Disabilities in Motion Jonathan Hsy, Tory V. Pearman, and Joshua R. Eyler
1 Atypical Bodies: Seeking after Meaning in Physical Difference John P. Sexton
2 Mobility Impairment: The Social Horizons of Disability in the Middle Ages Richard H. Godden
3 Chronic Pain and Illness: Reinstating Chronic-Crip Histories to Forge Affirmative Disability Futures Alicia Spencer-Hall
4 Blindness: Evolving Religious and Secular Constructions and Responses Edward Wheatley
5 Deafness: Reading Invisible Signs Julie Singer
6 Speech: Medieval Representations of Speech Impairments Kisha G. Tracy
7 Learning Difficulties: Ideas about Intellectual Diversity in Medieval Thought and Culture Eliza Buhrer
8 Mental Health Issues: Folly, Frenzy, and the Family Aleksandra Pfau
Notes
References
Index
