The Forgotten Other: Disability Studies and the Classical Body

The interviews in this episode of Classics Confidential were recorded at a workshop entitled The Forgotten Other: Disability Studies and the Classical Body. The workshop took place at Kings College in June 2018: it was organised by Dr Ellen Adams, Senior Lecturer in Classical Art & Archaeology at Kings College London, and Dr Emma-Jayne Graham, Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at The Open University.

Programme structure and timecodes:

0.00 Introduction to the programme; Ellen Adams on the background to the workshop.

3.31 Lennard Davis on the background to Disability Studies, and the language of disability in the modern world (and its retrospective application to antiquity)

6.41 Ellen Adams on previous scholarship on disability in antiquity

8.39 Christian Laes on Greek and Latin vocabulary

13.04 Edith Hall on the myth of Hephaestus, Orion and Cedalion, and pain in the Philoctetes.

17.55 Michael Squire on classical sculpture and the Venus De Milo

20.18 Lennard Davis on (non)representations of disability in the contemporary film industry

22.44 Stephanie Evelyn Wright on skeletal evidence from Roman burials

26.55 Jane Draycott on the literary and archaeological evidence for ancient prostheses

30.20 Tom Shakespeare on studying disability in the past, and the importance and danger of imagination.

33.19 Ellen Adams on the surprises, highlights and challenges of the workshop

37.07 Conclusion and acknowledgements