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Call for Papers




An increasing amount of attention has been paid to impairment and disability in classical antiquity in recent years. However, one aspect of the subject that has not received significant attention, despite recent developments in the study of ancient paradoxography (e.g., Kazantzidis 2019; Geus 2018) and ancient collections, collectors, and collecting (e.g., Carpino et al. 2018; Higbie 2017; Thompson 2016; Gahtan and Pegazzano 2015; Rutledge 2012), is the public display of impaired and disabled people. The same applies to extraordinary (in all senses of the word) bodies.

Whether those bodies were human, animal, or cryptid, when scholars have acknowledged this phenomenon, the focus has been placed squarely on those individuals responsible for the displaying. For example, the imperial biographer Suetonius uses this as an indicator of virtue or vice in his subjects: Augustus is a good emperor for avoiding bodily display while Tiberius and Domitian are bad emperors for indulging in the practice. The Historia Augusta follows suit, using it as a means of communicating Commodus and Elagabalus’ degeneracy (e.g., Trentin 2011).

What is less often considered, is how the extraordinary individuals and creatures themselves felt about being displayed. To what extent is this sort of information recoverable? Accessing information about the lived experience of impairment and disability in antiquity is challenging as there is relatively little evidence that provides explicit information on the subject from the first-person perspective. Can turning our attention to other times and places, such as Medieval and Early Modern royal courts and menageries, Victorian freak shows and circuses, as well as the ongoing contemporary controversies over the display of human remains such as those of Joseph Merrick (‘the Elephant Man’) and Charles Byrne (‘the Irish Giant’), assist us in our efforts? And what about the reception of this particular aspect of the classical world in popular cultural representations such as television programmes, films, and analogue and digital games?

We welcome 20-minute papers and posters from scholars on a range of themes broadly related to ‘bodily display’ from antiquity to the present day. We particularly welcome and encourage the perspectives of scholars from under-represented communities. The workshop will be held on Friday 1st September 2023 at the University of Glasgow but will be a hybrid event in which speakers and delegates can also participate online to maximise accessibility. Papers and posters can be presented live in person or online, or pre-recorded, and will be followed by 10 minutes for questions. The keynote speaker will be Adrienne Mayor, author of Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws, and Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities (2022) and The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (2010).

Please send abstracts (maximum 300 words) for twenty-minute papers to Jane Draycott (Jane.Draycott@Glasgow.ac.uk) and Jamie Young (J.Young.4@research.gla.ac.uk) by Friday 14th April 2023.

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