If eugenics—the science of eliminating types of undesirable human beings from the species record—came to overdetermine the late nineteenth century in relation to disability, the twentieth century may be best characterized as managing the repercussions for variable human populations. A Cultural History of Disability in the Modern Age provides an interdisciplinary overview of disability as an outpouring of professional, political, and representational efforts to fix, correct, eliminate, preserve, and even cultivate the value of crip bodies. This book pursues analyses of disability’s deployment as a wellspring for an alternative ethics of living in and alongside the different body while simultaneously considering the varied social and material contexts of devalued human differences from World War I to the present. In short, this volume demonstrates that, in Ozymandias-like ways, the Western Project of the Human with its perpetuation of bodymind hierarchies lies crumbling in the deserts of failed empires, genocidal furies, and the rejuvenating myths of new nation-states in the twentieth century.

An essential resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, literature, culture, philosophy, rehabilitation, technology, and education, A Cultural History of Disability in the Modern Age explores such themes and topics as: atypical bodies, mobility impairment, chronic pain and illness, blindness, deafness, speech, learning difficulties, and mental health while, wrestling with their status as unreliable predictors of what constitutes undesirable humanity.

Table of contents

List of Figures       vi
Notes on Contributors     vii–ix
Series Preface        x–xiv
Introduction 1–18
1. Atypical Bodies 19–28
2. Mobility Impairment   29–46
3. Chronic Pain and Illness    47–60
4. Blindness 61–78
5. Deafness  79–94
6. Speech: Speech Disability’s Awkward Late Modernity  95–110
7. Learning Difficulties   111–132
8. Mental Health Issues   133–152
References   162–182