Friends of Greek Art Lecture—Disability in Ancient Greece: A Case Study in Mobility

Disability can be a feature of the body, but as Disability Studies scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has shown, it is also a material arrangement, one that can result in a “misfit” relationship between a person and the environments in which they live and operate.

In this talk Dr. Debby Sneed (Cal State, Long Beach) addresses the question of bodies and movement in ancient Greece. By looking at represented bodies whose movement was in some way altered or restricted by a mobility impairment or disability, she considers some of the ways that disabled ancient Greeks navigated “misfit” relationships with their physical environments by means of assistive technologies and other aids. Through this work viewers can see how and where bodies fit into ancient Greek societies.

Image: The god Hephaestus sits, with a crutch tucked under his armpit; © The Trustees of the British Museum, 1816,0610.19