On behalf of the Society for Disability Studies, we are very pleased to
announce that Sara Scalenghe has been selected as the winner of the 2007
Irving K.Zola Award for Emerging Scholars in Disability Studies for her
paper entitled: ""Blindness in the Early Modern Middle East (1500-1800)".
Paper Abstract
Of those conditions that are numbered among physical disabilities
today, the one that has figured most prominently in Arab-Islamic literature
is blindness. The cultural salience of blindness may be ascribed, at least
in part, to the documented frequency of congenital blindness and
blindness-inducing eye infections and diseases in the Middle East, which
were caused by a combination of poor sanitary conditions, equally poor
medical care, and climatic conditions that are hospitable to the infectious
agents in question. Indeed, blindness seems to have enjoyed a privileged
place in the region's panoply of physical impairments. Ottoman-era sources
are replete with blind individuals, suggesting that blindness was very much
a part of the cultural landscape of the early modern Middle East. The
frequency of blindness made an impression on foreign observers as well. To
cite but one example, the physician Alexander Russell (d. 1768), a keen and
generally sympathetic observer of local conditions, reported that
ophthalmia was one of the most prevalent medical conditions in Aleppo
during his long residency in the city in the mid-eighteenth century.[i]
The following pages address three issues critical to any
discussion of early modern attitudes to blindness and the blind: First, how
was blindness explained in Ottoman Syria (the region that comprises today's
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine)? Was it thought a form of
divine punishment? Was it associated with perceived spiritual deficiency,
with sinful behavior, with guilt, or with other forms of moral corruption?
Second, was the physical state of blindness associated with a metaphysical
capacity for "sight?" In other words, were the blind believed to be endowed
with special skills or powers and/or to have a unique relationship with
divine or other supernatural forces? Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
what does the documentary evidence indicate about the relative state of
social integration or marginalization experienced by the blind in Ottoman
Syrian society? Ultimately, my goal is to document and assess reigning
conceptualizations of this physical impairment and explore the extent to
which such intellectual constructs impacted, and where in turn impacted by,
the lives of blind persons.
We are also very pleased to announce that an Honorable Mention will be
awarded to: Ann Millett for her paper entitled: "Sculpting Body Ideals:
Alison Lapper Pregnant and the Public Display of Disability".
Paper Abstract
In 2005, artist Alison Lapper was thrust into fame when her 11.5
foot tall, 13 ton sculptural portrait, Alison Lapper Pregnant, was unveiled
on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square. Lapper agreed to being cast in
the nude by British artist Marc Quinn when she was 7 months pregnant and to
be placed on public display; many have called the piece a
collaboration. The controversial sculpture has brought widespread
attention to the model's body and her life story. Lapper, born without
arms and with shortened legs, is an alumnus of British institutions for
disabled children and programs for disabled artists, a now single mother,
and an artist who makes work about her embodied experiences as a disabled
woman. Carved from precious Italian marble and placed on a pedestal among
statues of naval captains, Lapper has been called a contemporary heroine of
cultural diversity, while the work has also been regarded as a tasteless
publicity stunt for Quinn. The exposure of Lapper's body transcends the
fact that she is nude, for Lapper grew up in insolated environments of
public intuitions and had limited interactions with public life; for
Lapper, the work is a true coming out. Alison Lapper Pregnant makes a
public statement about this disabled woman's right to be represented as a
productive social subject and a reproductive sexual being and her right to
represent others.
This paper will interrogate the sculpture's representation of
disability within the contexts of Trafalgar Square the genre of Public Art,
as well as in comparisons with Quinn's previous series of sculptural
amputees, The Complete Marbles (2002), and with Lapper's
self-representations. I will argue that Alison Lapper Pregnant
significantly responds to, as well as transforms the history of its
particular space and interacts with the populations who inhabit that
space. Rather than displaying trite political correctness or simple shock
value, as much of its criticism wages, the work plays monumental roles in
the histories of both disability representation and art. As a public
spectacle, it recycles, and I will argue contemporizes, the representation
of disability as both heroic and freakish. The sculpture in the round
poignantly brings into high relief contrasting perceptions and
representations of disabled bodies and therefore forges important public
debates. Lapper's photography and her recently published memoir are key
components of such discussions, as they provide perspectives by and a voice
to the disabled subject on display. By weaving together these contexts of
and reactions to Quinn's and Lapper's works, this paper underscores the
necessity of placing the works of disabled and non-disabled artists in
dialogues with one another and with larger histories of visual culture.
Please join us in extending our most sincere congratulations on these
outstanding accomplishments to our emerging scholars in Disability Studies!
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