"Disabilities in Ancient Greece": a Brown Bag Talk by Dr. Debby Sneed

 

 

 

Disability exists as a feature of the body, but as Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has shown, it is also a material arrangement, one that can result in a "misfit" relationship between a person and the environments in which they live and operate. In my talk, I address bodies and movement in ancient Greece, specifically bodies whose movement was in some way altered or restricted by a mobility impairment or disability. I consider the ways that some ancient Greeks navigated misfit relationships with their physical environments by means of technological and other aids. Through this work, we can begin reconstructing how bodies not just fit but were fitted into ancient Greek society.