CCHS seminar series: Curating Medieval Mental Disabilities

Studies of trauma in museums as well as how medieval disability in general is represented in these spaces makes it clear that historical mental disability is underrepresented in heritage spaces. There are many reasons for this. One is the lingering stigma of mental illness and a general reluctance to engage with related subjects. Another is the difficulty in analysing mental disability in historical contexts, especially in time periods prior to psychoanalysis and its terminology. A further significant barrier is how to represent what are often invisible disabilities in a physical manner. Acquiescing to these limitations has the consequence of erasing people with mental disabilities from history, which is both a misrepresentation of the past and damaging to modern peoples.

This talk will introduce the study of medieval mental disabilities and the significance of (mis)representation as well as the possibilities in terms of inclusion in museum spaces..