Publishing house Bloomsbury Publishing has produced the new six-volume collection A Cultural History of Disability.
Under the general editorship of Professor David Bolt (Liverpool Hope University) and Professor Robert McRuer (George Washington University), A Cultural History of Disability is a multi-volume project on renderings of disability from Antiquity to the 21st century.
The set consists of six illustrated books, each devoted to a cultural exploration of disability in an important historical period – namely, Antiquity, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance, The Long Eighteenth Century, The Long Nineteenth Century, and The Modern Age.
The six volumes have now been published by Bloomsbury together in hardback as a set and will also be released as individual volumes at a later date.
In a major work that spans 2,500 years, questions such as; How have understandings of disability evolved in western culture? And how has disability been represented and perceived in different social and cultural conditions? are explored by an international gathering of more than 50 authors.
The themes that can be traced across all six volumes are atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health. How these embodiments have influenced and been influenced by culture is explored throughout the work’s 2,000 or so pages.
One of the chapters - which focuses on the cultural history of learning difficulties in the modern age - is authored by Dr Owen Barden, Associate Professor of Disability Studies in the School of Social Science.
A Cultural History of Disability will be officially launched this year at two events, one at George Washington University, the other here at Liverpool Hope.