Performing Disability is a landmark examination of performance history in the medieval and early modern era. Seeking to provide a fact-based assessment of disabled performance, this survey examines the nature and socialization of disabled performers in the medieval and early Tudor periods. Using Records of Early English Drama, literary representations, and targeted histories of disability in the medieval period, this study takes a new and welcome look at the evidence for, and the conceptualization of, “impairment” as a performative act in the premodern era.
It features discussions on the different societal constructions pertaining to “disability” (mental incapacity, blindness and deafness, dwarfism, gigantism, etc.), and how the evidence for such conditions was socialized through performance.
Taking an evidence-based and multidisciplinary approach to perceptions of identity and “othering” in premodern society, this study is certain to appeal to a wide audience, including historians of theatre and performance, disability advocates and theorists, and social historians.
- COVER
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- A Note on Transcriptions
and Translations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. “The number of fuillis ar infinite”: Framing “Foolery” as Disability in Premodern Performance
- Chapter 2. “All Fools to Christ”: The Patronage of Fools in English Monasteries
- Chapter 3. Blyndharpours and Kakeharpours: Accommodating Blindness in Premodern Performance
- Chapter 4. Size and Shape as Aspects of Early Performance
- Chapter 5. Orthopaedic Variance as Performance
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
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