In/Visibility, Invalidism and Identity

This presentation was given on 04/10/2019 at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability in London, as part of a Conference on Disability History and Heritage called, "Opening up the Archives"   When I was asked to present, I wasn’t too sure what to present, while my research is interesting, it still feels like it is in…

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

 “anyone who did not understand that Christina was an almost constant and often a sadly-smitten invalid, seeing at times the countenance of Death very close to her own, would form an extremely incorrect notion of her corporeal, and thus in some sense her spiritual, condition”[1] Disability and/or Chronic Illness Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) had…

Detective Pikachu and Disabilty Representation in the media

  Detective Pikachu (2019) is the latest blockbuster movie that has fallen into the usual tropes of how disability is represented.  As a disabled woman it was unfortunate to see one of my favourite franchises fall back on this predictable and repetitive trope. Howard Clifford is the villain of the moment in this latest film,…

Disabled person or person with a disability – Does it matter?

There has and continues to be debate over the use of terminology around disability. Should the term be disabled person or person with a disability? While it might seem pejorative to some, it isn’t when you consider language as a whole. Language isn’t just a tool of communication generally, but to communicate ideas and meaning…

Three Minute Thesis

Capturing the voices of those hidden within the past is what fuels my research, specifically those of disabled people, especially at the intersection with other marginalised groups. It can be hard to find these voices, as historically it has mainly been white upper class males who have had their voices heard, and as such it…

The Crippled Nutmeg Seller: Gendering Disabled Bodies (Part 3)

This piece uses a primary source about a disabled nutmeg seller as a launchpad to explore concepts of the worthy and unworthy poor in the 19th century. Part1, part 2 is Sensationalistic Voyeurism and part 3 is the Gendering of Disability Disability in the nineteenth century can be argued to have a gendered component. Indeed, the…

The Crippled Nutmeg Seller – Sensationalitic Voyeurism (Part 2)

This piece uses a primary source about a disabled nutmeg seller as a launchpad to explore concepts of the worthy and unworthy poor in the 19th century. Part1, part 2 is Sensationalistic Voyeurism and part 3 is the Gendering of Disability Victorian melodrama, such as what is evident in this text, presents an “emotional world based…

The Crippled Nutmeg Seller: 19th Century Worthy and Unworthy Poor (Part 1)

This piece uses a primary source about a disabled nutmeg seller as a launchpad to explore concepts of the worthy and unworthy poor in the 19th century. Part 1, part 2 is Sensationalistic Voyeurism and part 3 is the Gendering of Disability The story of the crippled street seller of nutmeg graters is a small glimpse…

Harriet Martineau – Early Years to the publication of Illustrations of the Political Economy

When Harriet was 9 (1812) one of her first lemons was handed to her; the death of her Aunt Martineau.[1]  While Martineau wasn't unfamiliar with death having recollections of mournful feelings when Nelson died when she was four, this death was the first in her family, and her first real introduction to a chronic illness…

Harriet Martineau and Medical Authority

In I844, after five years of illness and confinement to her sick-room, Martineau published Life in the sick- room: essays by an invalid, a normative treatise on invalidism. While she was well known in the Victorian era for her work on the political economy and other social commentary, she is more recently remembered for her…