Main description:

This volume is a major contribution to the field of disability history in the ancient world. Contributions from leading international scholars examine deformity and disability from a variety of historical, sociological and theoretical perspectives, as represented in various media. The volume is not confined to a narrow view of 'antiquity' but includes a large number of pieces on ancient western Asia that provide a broad and comparative view of the topic and enable scholars to see this important topic in the round.

Disability in Antiquity is the first multidisciplinary volume to truly map out and explore the topic of disability in the ancient world and create new avenues of thought and research.

Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgements

Note on the Bibliography

List of Contributors

Introduction: Disability History and the Ancient World. Past, Present and Future - Christian Laes

Disability and Infirmitas in the Ancient World: Demographic and Biological facts in the longue duree - April Pudsey

The Ancient (Near) East

Disabilities from Head to Toe in Hittite Civilisation - Richard Beal

Mesopotamia and Israel - Edgar Kellenberger

Ancient Persia and Silent Disability - Omar Coloru

Egyptian Medicine and Disabilities: from Pharaonic to Graeco-Roman Egypt - Rosalie David

India: Demystifying Disability in Antiquity - M. Miles

Disability in Ancient China - Olivia Milburn

The Greek World

The Greek vocabulary of disabilities - Evelyn Samama

Ability and Disability in Classical Athenian Oratory - Martha Lynn Rose

Disabilities in Comedy and Tragedy - Robert Garland

Legal (and Customary?) Approaches to the Disabled in Ancient Greece - Matthew Dillon

The Hellenistic Turn in Bodily Representations: Venting Anxiety in Terracotta Figurines - Alexandre Mitchell

Plutarch's 'Philosophy' of Disability: Human after All - Michiel Meeusen

The Roman World

Roman Perfect bodies. The Stoic View - Bert Gevaert

Foul and Fair Bodies, Minds, and Poetry in Roman Satire - Sarah Bond and T.H.M. Gellar-Goad

The 'Other' Romans: Deformed Bodies in the Visual Arts of Rome - Lisa Trentin

Mobility Impairment in the Sanctuaries of Early Roman Italy - Emma-Jayne Graham

Mental Disability? Galen on Mental Health - Chiara Thumiger

Madness and Mad Patients According to Caelius Aurelianus - Danielle Gourevitch

Disability in the Roman Digest - Peter Toohey

The Late Ancient World

Hysterical Women? Gender and Disability in Early Christian Narrative - Anna Rebecca Solevag

Augustine's Sermons and Disabilities - Martin Claes and Anthony Dupont

Infirmitas in Monastic Rules - Jenni Kuuliala

The Coptic and Ethiopic Tradition on Disabilities - Carol Downer

The Disability Within: Sexual Desire as Disability in Syriac Christianity - John Martens

The Disabled in the Byzantine Empire - Stephanos Efthymiadis

What Difference did Islam Make? Disease and Disability in Early Medieval North Africa - Matthew Gaumer

Impotent Husbands, Eunuchs and Flawed Women in Early Islamic Law - Hocine Benkheira

Disability in Rabbinic Judaism - Lennart Lehmhaus and Julia Watts Belser

The endurance of tradition

Then and now. Canonical law on disabilities - Irina Metzler

The Imperfect body in Nazi Germany: Ancient Concepts, Modern Technologies - Toon Van Houdt

Bibliography

Index