In this dissertation I historicize dominant discourses of disability and place my analysis of five published disability narratives in dialogue with those discourses in order to show how the authors of these narratives craft alternative rhetorics to resist representation that casts them as unsuited to public space. Critical to my dissertation is my belief that personal narratives by rhetoricians with disabilities are invaluable sites of rhetorical inquiry, especially in light of the marginalized subject position of people with disabilities in the larger culture. Because my dissertation connects rhetoric and disability studies, my purpose is two-fold. For rhetorical theorists, I argue that attention to dominant discourses of disability and the alternative rhetorics in disability narratives can expand our present understanding of rhetorics of the body to interrogate: (1) who has the authority to speak and who doesn't; (2) who the dominant culture grants the position of subject and who the dominant culture sees as inherently "Other" or an object; and (3) how differing intersections of identity as configured by the actual appearance of the body can often determine whether or not the body "speaks" or is "spoken of" and, in conjunction, whether or not that body is heard, ignored, or silenced. For disability studies scholars, I rediscover the disability narrative as a genre that provides people with disabilities an opportunity to make meaning of their embodied experiences and their material circumstances while simultaneously addressing the ways in which disability itself is also a social construction similar to race, class, and gender. Ultimately, I argue that disability narrative can be a vehicle for a "rhetoric of resistance" that I posit allows people with disabilities to: (1) move their bodies and their voices from the margins to the center of public space; (2) revalue the embodied experience of disability as a site for knowledge and meaning making; and (3) challenge dominant discourses of disability that cast the disabled body as inferior and thereby serve as justification for the cultural devaluation and social marginalization of people with disabilities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the philanthropist Ebba Ramsay portrayed children with epilepsy in her writings during her time active at Wilhelmsro, an institution for children with epilepsy outside Jönköping, Sweden, from 1877 to 1915. The study is based on an analysis of 23 writings by Ramsay, where the main focus includes Ramsay's representations of the children and what insights these can provide about society's view of epilepsy and its impact on the affected children and society at this time. Bill Hughes' categorization of the basic aversive feelings on disability is used to categorize Ramsay's view of the epileptic children. The results show that Ramsay portrayed the children with a mixture of fear, pity, and disgust, often portraying epilepsy as a tragic and heavy burden for both individuals and their families. She also describes a society that is often unsympathetic and exclusionary towards these children. These representations are used to evoke compassion and support for better care and education for children with epilepsy. The final discussion highlights the relevance of Ramsay's work to the teaching of history at secondary school level, where her texts can be used to discuss how historical perspectives on illness and disability can relate to contemporary views and policies. Suggestions for future research include comparisons of Ramsay's work with other similar institutions internationally, as well as deeper studies of the gender aspects that may have influenced her work.

This thesis investigates facial damage and disfigurement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, with a primary emphasis upon acquired disfigurement as a result of trauma or disease. It considers facial damage and disfigurement from the perspectives of those whose own faces were affected, those who encountered others with damaged faces, and the medical practitioners who treated and wrote about facial damage. The central research questions addressed here are: what was it like to have, to see, or to treat an atypical face in early modern England? The thesis is structured so that it addresses three main aspects of this subject. The first is the medical and surgical treatment of the face, and the ways in which medical practitioners discussed the facially damaged patients whom they encountered. The second main area of research is the impact that the gendered framework of early modern society had upon responses to facial difference. The third area of research is into the role played by disgust in determining reactions to some facial damage. This section of the thesis investigates the non-visual aspects of some facial damage and the extent to which the fluids and smells produced by the damage caused by conditions such as the pox might have resulted in stigmatisation. Together, these three strands of research form a wide-ranging investigation into the experience of, and responses to, facial damage and disfigurement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.

This dissertation studies the transnational interactions of Deaf Americans in a transnational Deaf public sphere from 1870-1924. Deaf Americans advanced a discourse of co-equality in which they asserted their ability to participate in society as Deaf-- and as deaf-- people.

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The aim of the present dissertation is to investigate attitudes toward individuals suffering from functional disorders or categorized as disabled and the conditions under which they have lived. The present author applies an historical perspective and identifies three significant turning points: the end of the eighteenth century and beginnings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The terms ”care” and ”control” reflect the complexity and conflict inherent in the perception and handling of these individuals. In the first period, folklore helped both explain and shape the way people apprehended infants born with functional disabilities or whose mental or physical developmet was aberrant. The inroads made by science during the eighteenth century helped combat these notions with knowledge and information. Upon ”discovering” the handicapped, the advocates of science identified them as an untapped source of labor. All that was needed was a conscientious upbringing and education. As a consequence, and with the blessings of the state and private charitable institutes, an increasing number of experts assumed parental obligation, thereby initiating a comprehensive institutionalization. The second period is epitomized by the founding of the first special needs school in Sweden, the National Institute for the Blind and Deaf-Mute in Stockholm in 1809. The actions of individuals like the energetic Per Aron Borg and the blind woman Charlotta Seuerling´s desire to receive a better education were small events with major significance. The diverging views of politicians and teachers on the form and content of lessons, which can be boiled down to a matter of theoretical knowledge versus practical vocational training, are also discussed. In the third period I focus on the increased control to which individuals with functional disabilities, specifically the vision-impaired and blind, were subjected at the outset of the twentieth century. Beginning in 1903, a countrywide inspection tour visited the blind in their homes. The inspectors were given the dual task of offering concrete support to the blind and look into their abilities to support themselves and live socially-approved, moral lives. It was an invasion of privacy with good intentions. The accumulated results showed that only a small number of individuals were able to support themselves in the trades they had acquired at blind school. Most continued to be dependent on relatives, social services and charitable donations.

This thesis aims to explore the history of blind diviners in Korea, using a review approach toexamine the existing literature in Korean on the topic. Beginning with a discussion of theorieson the origins and practices of blind diviners during the pre-modern period, and then movinginto the drastic changes that occurred during the Japanese colonial period, the thesis ends withan exploration of how the situation has developed for blind diviners in the modern period. Thethesis utilizes four main sources: Chu (2008, 2020), Pak and Chŏng (2019), and Son (2019).With this exploration of the topic, this thesis aims to amend the lack of available literature inEnglish by exploring the phenomenon of blind diviners, especially the disability aspects oftheir existence, utilizing some of the literature available in Korean. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska blinda siares historia i Korea genom en litteraturreview av den befintliga litteraturen på koreanska inom ämnet. Uppsatsen inleder med deblinda siarnas ursprung och arbete under den förmoderna perioden, och övergår sedan till dedrastiska förändringar som inträffade under den Japanska kolonialtiden. Uppsatsen avslutasmed en utforskning av hur situationen har utvecklats för blinda siare under den modernaperioden. Uppsatsen använder fyra huvudkällor: Chu (2008, 2020), Pak och Chŏng (2019)och Son (2019). Med denna utforskning av ämnet syftar denna uppsats till att fylla ut en delav avsaknaden av litteratur på engelska, särskilt de mindre utforskadefunktionsnedsättningsaspekterna av blinda siares existens, genom att använda en del av denlitteratur som finns tillgänglig på koreanska.

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