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Disability and Culture: Whose Tragedy? (Workshop, Royal Holloway, London, 21 March 2013)

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By CentreForMedicalHumanities.org Research Team | Last verified: September 2026

Research Summary: Disability and Culture Workshop

Event Type: Academic workshop exploring disability representations in culture and literature
Date & Location: March 21, 2013 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, London WC1X 9NG
Organising Institution: Royal Holloway, University of London (Trauma, Fiction, History Series)
Primary Focus Areas: Stereotypical disability representations, film phenomenology, narrative constructions, medical narratives, blindness/deafness in literature and culture
Key Speakers: Nine interdisciplinary academics from King's College London, Queen Mary, University of Warwick, Aston University, Birkbeck College, University of Southampton, University of Liverpool, Worcester College Oxford, and University of Cambridge
Session Topics: Epilepsy representation, deaf embodiment, disability in French cinema, gender and medical establishment, autism and insight, blindness in travel writing, disability and sexuality in early modern poetry
Stated Objective: First step in expanding dialogue between academics, artists, medical professionals, charities, activists and community groups on disability and culture
Access & Cost: Free attendance including lunch and refreshments; registration required with Dr Hannah Thompson

Disability and Culture: Whose Tragedy?
Thursday March 21st, 2013
Centre for Creative Collaboration (c4cc) 16 Acton Street, London WC1X 9NG

Part of Royal Holloway’s Trauma, Fiction, History Series, jointly sponsored by the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the Humanities and Arts Research Centre, Royal Holloway.

Programme

11-11:15 Registration and Coffee

11:15-1:15pm Session One

Whose Disability? Challenging Stereotypical Representations of Epilepsy Maria Vaccarella (Centre for the Humanities and Health and Comparative Literature Department, King’s College London)

Sur mes lèvres, Deafness, Embodiment: Towards a Film Phenomenology of a Differently Ordered Sensorium Jenny Chamarette (Queen Mary, University of London)

Beyond the ‘Narrative of Overcoming’: Representations of Disability in Contemporary French Culture Sam Haigh (University of Warwick)

‘Freaks!’ Hurler Syndrome and other disabilities in Claire Daudin’s Le Sourire Brian Sudlow (Aston University)

1:15-2pm: Lunch

2-3:30: Session Two

Ana García-Siñeriz, Esas mujeres rubias (2010): disability, gender, and the medical establishment Abigail Lee Six (Royal Holloway, University of London)

The pain of itching Naomi Segal (Birkbeck College, London)

‘Raw data’: autistic aloneness and the category of insight in Elle s’appelle Sabine Vivienne Orchard (University of Southampton)

3:30-4: Tea

4-5:30 Session Three

Telling, not seeing: blindness and travel writing Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool)

On not being deaf to the blind Kate Tunstall (Worcester College, Oxford)

Disability and Sexuality: the poetry of Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin (1595-1670) Nick Hammond (University of Cambridge)

5:30 Closing Remarks and Plans for Next Stages

Attendance at the study day is free and includes lunch and refreshments. Anyone interested in attending should contact the organiser, Dr Hannah Thompson to register for catering purposes.

The Centre for Creative Collaboration is a neutral collaborative space near King’s Cross. We are using this space to think about the interdisciplinary and collaborative potential of the Disability and Culture project. This workshop is the first step in a project which we hope will expand into a dialogue not only between academics, but also with artistis, medical professionals, charities, activists and community groups.

Directions to c4cc can be found here and more details of the event can be found here.

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