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News from the UK and Canada

News from the UK

(Wendy Gagen and Penny Richards)

In connection with the Disability History Group (contact wendy.gagen@pms.ac.uk for more information), Dr Julie Anderson and Dr Neil Pemberton are organising two workshops in June 2009, looking at issues surrounding blindness and deafness, entitled ‘Sound and Vision’. A call for papers will be issued by the end of June 2008. For more information contact Dr Julie Anderson at julie.anderson@manchester.ac.uk.

The provisional program for "Before Depression: The Representation and Culture of Depression in Britain and Europe, 1660-1800," a conference to be held June 19-21, 2008, at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle and the University of Sutherland, is now available. The majority of titles will be of interest to disability historians, so check out the link: http://www.beforedepression.com/speakers.htm.

There's also a component of the project called "18th-Century Blues: Exploring the Melancholy Mind," which focuses on visual representations. The exhibit will be on display at the Shipley Gallery in Gateshead for most of the summer: http://www.beforedepression.com/Exibition.htm.

The Social History of Learning Disability Conference entitled ‘Spending Time’ will take place on 3rd July 2008 at the Open University, hosted by the Faculty of Health and Social Care, and the Social History of Learning Disability Group. The panel of international speakers will be considering such issues as time spent in work, at leisure, and in institutions and will include personal experiences and life histories. For more information and how to register please contact Lesley Henderson at l.g.henderson@open.ac.uk.

Look out for the session on ‘Disability and the City’, organized by Dr Marie Nelson and Professor Anne Borsay at the next conference of the European Association of Urban History, which is being held in Lyon, France between 27 and 30 August 2008. For further details of the, 9th International Conference on Urban History, ‘A Comparative History of European Cities’ please see http://eauh.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr.

The Nottinghamshire Disabled People’s Movement and the Holocaust Centre have just held an event entitled, ‘Disability and the Holocaust: We Shall Not Forget’. Held on May 11th, this event aimed to highlight this rarely discussed public remembrance of the Holocaust. ‘The stories of prejudice which arise out of this history are important today, as disabled people were targeted by the Nazis due to their perceptions about the ‘genetic impurity’ of disabled people. In our contemporary society, the debate about disabled people and their ‘genetic rights’ is still on-going, especially in the light of advances in genetic and prenatal screening, and the human genome project. Therefore, this event was important in highlighting these current debates which were discussed in terms of equality issues and their historical context.’ If you would like more information about this event or to explore the work being done around disability and the Holocaust contact Heather Hollins at hjr1@le.ac.uk.

Finally, the latest news from the museums and galleries project, ‘Rethinking Disability Representation’, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and NESTA, with support from the University of Leicester and nine other partner museums, indicates the importance of engaging in cross discipline debate. This is an ‘experimental project which is developing new approaches to the interpretation of disability and to the representation of disabled people’s lives within museums and galleries’. Evaluation of the ways in which visitors responded and engaged with exhibits and educational sessions is under way. Exciting projects such as Northampton’s Museum and Art Galleries’ consideration of issues around fashion and footwear and showed the similarities and differences between high fashion and orthopaedic footwear, aimed to make visitors re-engage with these artefacts in a new way. It is great to see dialogue between museum studies, disability studies and historians! More information can be obtained through the project coordinator Debbie Jolly, dj3@leicester.ac.uk.

News from Canada

From Canada we have the following news:

“Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember,” April 17 to July 13, 2008:
http://www.rom.on.ca/exhibitions/special/out_from_under.php.

Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember explores the history of disabled people in Canada. A display of thirteen diverse objects reveals a rich and nuanced story that pays tribute to the resilience, creativity, and the civic and cultural contributions of Canadians with disabilities.

The first of its kind in Canada, this remarkable exhibition was produced in collaboration with students, scholars and alumni from Ryerson University. The origin of Out from Under was a special topic seminar designed to uncover the hidden history of disability in Canada. Students were invited to identify an object representing a particular era or moment in Canadian disability history and explore its significance. The result is a powerful portrait of a community that is vital, dynamic and proud. Out from Under is fully accessible.

“Madness, Citizenship, and Social Justice,” June 12-15, 2008, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. For more information: http://www.sfu.ca/madcitizenship_conference/participants.html.

Two medieval history blogs related to disability out of Canada:

And speaking of blogs, here is an interesting one from the USA by Sarah Heacox at Impossible Universe about Olympians with disabilities in history: http://impossibleuniverse.blogspot.com/2008/05/other-olympians-with-disabilities.html.

© The Disability History Association, 2008

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