Medical history meets disability studies

17 January, Leiden University (Lipsius building, room 2.28), Leiden

We are delighted to publish the programme of the HHH meeting in January. As always, participation in the meeting is free and open to anyone. Please register by sending an email to historyhealthhealing@gmail.com and specify which workshops you would like to attend (Round 1: Pollaert or Korbee & Van Miert; Round 2: Verwaal or Plak). We hope to see you in Leiden on January 17!

Programme

13:00 – 13:15 Introduction

13:15 – 14:00 Daniël de Moulin lecture: Monika Baár (European University Institute) “Addressing the Violence of War: Sorrowful Intersections between Medical History and Disability Studies”

Disability studies scholars often sought to ‘liberate’ themselves from the overbearing impact of the medical gaze, rendering disability studies and medical history strange bedfellows. Recently, however, several researchers have demonstrated that treating the two sub-fields separately may come at the cost of glossing over important connections. The lecture tackles a grim, but painfully relevant subject by discussing interpretative frameworks for the study of the impact of war. This includes, among other things, physical disablement, traumatization, displacement and starvation. The lecture will employ concepts such as debility (Jasbir Puar), and slow death (Lauren Berlant) to illuminate that only an approach that integrates medical history and disability studies can do justice to the intricacies of this topic.

14:00 – 14:45 Workshop round 1 with a choice between two workshops

• Eline Pollaert – “Disability Archives”
• Vincent Korbee & Eline van Miert – “Between medical and disability history: the case of cognitive disability”

14:45 – 15:15 Coffee / Tea

15:15 – 16:00 Workshop round 2 with a choice between two workshops

• Ruben Verwaal – “An 18th-century model of disability: the case of deafness”
• Floris Plak – “Positionality and disability history”

16:00 – 16:30 Concluding discussion/reflection & Stichting Historia Medicinae Thesis award 

16:30 – 17.30 Drinks