Medical Humanities Blog

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Second Call for Papers - Disability & the Victorians: Confronting Legacies Posted: 10 Jun 2011 06:51 AM PDT Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies; Disability & the Victorians: Confronting Legacies; 30th July-1st August 2012; Leeds Trinity University College Second Call for Papers The nineteenth century was the period during which disability was conceptualised, categorised, and defined. The industrial revolution, advances in medicine, the emergence of philanthropy and the growth of asylums all played their part in creating what today's society describes as the medical model of disability. Disability can be traced through many forms: in material culture and literary genres; scientific, medical and official inquiries; art; architecture; the history of disabled charities; disabled people's experiences; the legacy inherited by disabled people today of the taxonomies and categories of disability - the 'handicapped'; the 'deaf and dumb'; the 'feeble minded'; the blind; the 'imbecile' the 'idiot' and the 'cretin' -- the legacy of the relationship between the body, the visual, the scientific and the literary text; the intersection of disability, theories of evolution, the emergence of the disciplines of statistics, social sciences and anthropology, eugenics and degeneration. This conference seeks to address conceptualisations of disability in the Victorian period and their legacy(ies); the ways in which we can draw disabled voices and testimonies together to construct 'the long view', the intersection of disability studies and Victorian studies, and the conceptual, disciplinary, and pedagogical issues that arise as a consequence of this research. Proposals for papers, panels, posters and other forms of presentation (e.g.