Disability before Disability in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Háskóli Íslands; Icelandic Research Fund
Organizer Name
Ármann Jakobsson; Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir
Organizer Affiliation
Háskóli Íslands; Háskóli Íslands
Presider Name
Christopher Crocker
Presider Affiliation
Háskóli Íslands
Paper Title 1
A World of Difference: Negotiating the Non-Normate Figure in the Icelandic Sagas
Presenter 1 Name
John P. Sexton
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Bridgewater State Univ.
Paper Title 2
Deafness, the Inability to Speak, and How Such Disabity Is Addressed in Medieval Iceland
Presenter 2 Name
Shaun F. D. Hughes
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Purdue Univ.
Paper Title 3
Inferring from Impairments: A Bioarchaeological Approach to Disability in Medieval Iceland
Presenter 3 Name
Haraldur Thor Hammer Haraldsson
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Háskóli Íslands
Start Date
10-5-2019 10:00 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1325
Description
This session, organised by the research project 'Disability Before Disability' funded by the Icelandic Research Fund (Grant of excellence no. 173655-051), will revolve around the ways in which disability is represented in medieval Icelandic literature, particularly in medieval saga writing. Panelists will engage with the concept of disability beyond the traditional bio-medical understanding of the term, exploring disability as a social phenomenon embedded in different social arrangements and cultural conventions. They will seek to understand what constituted disability in medieval Icelandic society, culture, and history prior to the establishment of disability as a modern legal, bureaucratic and administrative concept. The aim is not to arrive at a comprehensive definition of disability in the sagas or to provide diagnoses based on modern pathological criteria. However, while maintaining a distinction between the two, the relationship between impairment (biological dysfunction) and disability (a process of exclusion) in the medieval sagas will be placed under scrutiny.
Among medieval and early modern texts, the medieval sagas are unique in the nature and scope of primary material they provide. In contrast to other medieval non-literary sources (e.g. legal texts or chronicles), the sagas embed the material they provide within a coherent, episodic narrative context. Thus, the sagas can facilitate the understanding of how disability works in the community and provide an impression as to how (saga) society dealt with and reacted to disability. This panel will engage with and build upon previous research on this topic in both an Icelandic and wider medieval context.
Ármann Jakobsson and Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir
Disability before Disability in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
Schneider 1325
This session, organised by the research project 'Disability Before Disability' funded by the Icelandic Research Fund (Grant of excellence no. 173655-051), will revolve around the ways in which disability is represented in medieval Icelandic literature, particularly in medieval saga writing. Panelists will engage with the concept of disability beyond the traditional bio-medical understanding of the term, exploring disability as a social phenomenon embedded in different social arrangements and cultural conventions. They will seek to understand what constituted disability in medieval Icelandic society, culture, and history prior to the establishment of disability as a modern legal, bureaucratic and administrative concept. The aim is not to arrive at a comprehensive definition of disability in the sagas or to provide diagnoses based on modern pathological criteria. However, while maintaining a distinction between the two, the relationship between impairment (biological dysfunction) and disability (a process of exclusion) in the medieval sagas will be placed under scrutiny.
Among medieval and early modern texts, the medieval sagas are unique in the nature and scope of primary material they provide. In contrast to other medieval non-literary sources (e.g. legal texts or chronicles), the sagas embed the material they provide within a coherent, episodic narrative context. Thus, the sagas can facilitate the understanding of how disability works in the community and provide an impression as to how (saga) society dealt with and reacted to disability. This panel will engage with and build upon previous research on this topic in both an Icelandic and wider medieval context.
Ármann Jakobsson and Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir