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Thread:
1.
What does disability offer as a category of historical analysis? Why does #DisHist matter?
Here is an eg:
Born in Sardinia, Antonio Gramsci (1891–
1937) lived with physical disability, possibly due to Pott's disease (image not of him).../
1.
What does disability offer as a category of historical analysis? Why does #DisHist matter?
Here is an eg:
Born in Sardinia, Antonio Gramsci (1891–
1937) lived with physical disability, possibly due to Pott's disease (image not of him).../
2.
His mother held to the idea that he was disabled after a fall down a flight of stairs which she blamed on a servant. The young Gramsci lived with chronic pain, and his condition may have impacted his growth as well.
#DisHist #DisabilityHistory #histmed
His mother held to the idea that he was disabled after a fall down a flight of stairs which she blamed on a servant. The young Gramsci lived with chronic pain, and his condition may have impacted his growth as well.
#DisHist #DisabilityHistory #histmed
3.
Gramsci's own writings describe how he was called a gobbo (hunchback) by those around him & described how his condition made him feel like an "intruder" in his family.../
#DisHist #histchild #histmed
Gramsci's own writings describe how he was called a gobbo (hunchback) by those around him & described how his condition made him feel like an "intruder" in his family.../
#DisHist #histchild #histmed
4.
Gramsci (shown as a child below) wrote letters describing the excruciating pain he felt at night, and the different remedies for his condition. He described how an aunt tried to cure his hump with oil from the lamp at the shrine of the local Madonna.
#DisHist #histmed #histSTM
Gramsci (shown as a child below) wrote letters describing the excruciating pain he felt at night, and the different remedies for his condition. He described how an aunt tried to cure his hump with oil from the lamp at the shrine of the local Madonna.
#DisHist #histmed #histSTM
5.
Gramsci described being hanged up for hours by a harness from a beam on the ceiling on doctors' orders to straighten his curved spine, which matched contemporaneous medical treatments of continuous traction & plasters shown here.../
#DisHist #histmed
Gramsci described being hanged up for hours by a harness from a beam on the ceiling on doctors' orders to straighten his curved spine, which matched contemporaneous medical treatments of continuous traction & plasters shown here.../
#DisHist #histmed
6.
Gramsci would also write letters to his wife where he described how difficult it was for him that as a 'gobbo' to make friends & how he wore a "mask of hardness" to cope.../
#DisHist #DisabilityHistory #histmed
Gramsci would also write letters to his wife where he described how difficult it was for him that as a 'gobbo' to make friends & how he wore a "mask of hardness" to cope.../
#DisHist #DisabilityHistory #histmed
7.
To what extent Gramsci's disability shaped his worldview we can never say with certainty. But he appeared more sensitive to disabled lives. For instance, he wrote a detailed account of an intellectually disabled teenage boy chained by his mother in a pigsty./
#DisHist
To what extent Gramsci's disability shaped his worldview we can never say with certainty. But he appeared more sensitive to disabled lives. For instance, he wrote a detailed account of an intellectually disabled teenage boy chained by his mother in a pigsty./
#DisHist
8.
Without resorting to retrospective diagnosis, it is clear that Gramsci's everyday life was transformed by disability. What it means for a reading of his writings is another matter altogether.
End thread.
Without resorting to retrospective diagnosis, it is clear that Gramsci's everyday life was transformed by disability. What it means for a reading of his writings is another matter altogether.
End thread.
