New Scholarly Space
Byzantine Disability Hub
Inaugural Lecture
Community and Difference: Freaks and Byzantine ‘Healing’
Prof. Glenn Peers
Thursday 9 April at 6pm GMT / 1PM EST (Zoom)
Nearly every film dealing with disability falls into the error of the ‘narrative prosthetic’, wherein another character’s disability becomes a mechanism for the normative lead to reach positive self-realization. The only film dealing with disability that has avoided this condescension is a 1932 Hollywood production, Freaks, directed by Tod Brown. Diverse bodies, startling still to contemporary sensibilities, are foregrounded in the film, the actors are given real agency within the narrative, and the people are allowed to express themselves fully and distinctively. And they exact their revenge on the ‘normals’. This paper seeks to perform a thought experiment in which Freaks is the lens by which we look at and try to understand Byzantine scenes of ‘healing’. The scare quotes indicate this paper’s position: the images seldom show healing as such, and perhaps they do imply whole bodies are coming in the next frame, but they still simply reveal non-normative bodies, graced by the presence of divinity. This paper, then, looks at some images from the art of Byzantium and reflects on them from a perspective granted by the extraordinary ‘freaks’ of the film. Were Byzantine artists able to produce empathetic representations of the diversely-abled persons they knew? Can they speak to our own conflicts and ambivalences like Freaks does, if only we ask different questions?
We are pleased to announce the establishment of the Byzantine Disability Hub, a new scholarly space dedicated to exploring physical and mental difference in the Byzantine world. The Hub aims to bring together scholars, students, and all those interested in the lived experiences, representations, and social dimensions of disability in Byzantium and the medieval eastern Mediterranean.
Serving as a central platform for our activities and resources, the Byzantine Disability Hub offers a gateway to lectures, group discussions, conference updates, and a curated repository of relevant scholarship. We envision the Hub as a meeting place—one that fosters connection, collaboration, and contribution within this emerging field of study. By encouraging dialogue and highlighting ongoing work, the Hub seeks to strengthen international networks, inspire new research, and support future projects that broaden our understanding of Byzantium and its diverse communities.
For more information about the Lecture, please use this link: https://byzantine-disability-hub.leeds.ac.uk/events/invited-lecture-prof-glenn-peers/
For more details about the Hub, please use this link: https://byzantine-disability-hub.leeds.ac.uk/