Postcolonial Disability in the Middle Ages
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program, Purdue Univ.
Organizer Name
Justin L. Barker, Dana Roders, Gina M. Hurley
Organizer Affiliation
Purdue Univ., Purdue Univ., Yale Univ.
Presider Name
Tory Vandeventer Pearman
Presider Affiliation
Miami Univ. Hamilton
Paper Title 1
Isidore's Etymologiae and the Normative Body in Anglo-Saxon England
Presenter 1 Name
Karen Bruce Wallace
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Ohio State Univ.
Paper Title 2
"Al white bicom, þurth Godes gras, / & clere wiþouten blame": An Affective Unpacking of Compulsory Ablebodiedness in King of Tars
Presenter 2 Name
Molly Lewis
Presenter 2 Affiliation
George Washington Univ.
Paper Title 3
Disorienting Mobilities: Encountering Alien Embodiment in the Medieval West and Global North
Presenter 3 Name
Jonathan Hsy
Presenter 3 Affiliation
George Washington Univ.
Paper Title 4
Respondent
Presenter 4 Name
Tory Vandeventer Pearman
Start Date
9-5-2014 1:30 PM
Session Location
Fetzer 1045
Description
Recent work in disability studies has challenged scholars to rethink the ways in which disability intersects with issues of gender, class, and race. In her book Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity, Simi Linton calls for a reexamination of how disability studies can be integrated into fields such as queer studies, women’s studies, and race and ethnic studies as a way to explore issues of marginalized identities. Scholars have noted the ways in which disabled bodies and the disabling of bodies can be part of a larger colonizing project. Indeed, Edward Wheatley has illuminated this trend in his recent work on Gerald of Wales, and similar connections are apparent in Mandeville’s Travels, The Book of Margery Kempe, and other medieval texts dealing with identity, marginalization, and transgressive boundaries. Papers might examine any example of an intersection between conquest and disability broadly defined, colonial representations of the disabled body/mind, representations of violence and disablism, religious identities and the disabled subject, etc. We are also open to any work that seeks to address the redefinition of what disabled bodies (both human and material) and the disabling of these bodies means in relation to larger issues of postcolonial theory and medieval studies.
Shaun F. D. Hughes
Postcolonial Disability in the Middle Ages
Fetzer 1045
Recent work in disability studies has challenged scholars to rethink the ways in which disability intersects with issues of gender, class, and race. In her book Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity, Simi Linton calls for a reexamination of how disability studies can be integrated into fields such as queer studies, women’s studies, and race and ethnic studies as a way to explore issues of marginalized identities. Scholars have noted the ways in which disabled bodies and the disabling of bodies can be part of a larger colonizing project. Indeed, Edward Wheatley has illuminated this trend in his recent work on Gerald of Wales, and similar connections are apparent in Mandeville’s Travels, The Book of Margery Kempe, and other medieval texts dealing with identity, marginalization, and transgressive boundaries. Papers might examine any example of an intersection between conquest and disability broadly defined, colonial representations of the disabled body/mind, representations of violence and disablism, religious identities and the disabled subject, etc. We are also open to any work that seeks to address the redefinition of what disabled bodies (both human and material) and the disabling of these bodies means in relation to larger issues of postcolonial theory and medieval studies.
Shaun F. D. Hughes