The Ashgate Research Companion to Medieval Disability Studies

The questions posed by disability studies scholarship are increasingly of interest to medieval studies scholars and there have been a wealth of books published on the intersection of these two fields of research over the past two decades. More recently, medieval scholars have developed a framework for considering more specifically medieval ways of thinking about disability, analyzing the medieval conception of the different or ’othered’ body and thinking through ’medieval things’: such as the responses to injury and resulting impairment in contemporary law, literature, and art; the impaired body as a site for miraculous transformation; the presence of physical and mental difference in different cultural modes than exist in the modern world; and the role of theosophical thought in characterizing difference. This is the first volume to survey this field as a whole, bringing together the most notable scholars in the field alongside up-and-coming academics, to analyse recent studies and to suggest directions for future research. Chapters are organized into four categories that treat broadly the current questions of the field as they apply to each contributor’s area of expertise: Articulations of Difference; Critical Perspectives; Traditions of Medieval Thought; and Disability and Material Cultures. Each category is introduced by a leading figure in the field, and the volume is concluded with an Afterword.