Skip to main content

Abstract: “The sort of man you all see me to be”: Visible Disability and Citizenship in Classical Athens

Jasmine Sahu-Hough 
PhD candidate, Yale University

 “The sort of man you all see me to be”: Visible Disability and Citizenship in Classical Athens

 The dokimasia held annually to assess the eligibility of Athenian citizens for the so-called ‘disability pension’ would seem, in many ways, to be a classic example of the public display of disabled bodies. In requiring the recipients of the pension to submit to examination, the ancient Athenian democracy appears to prefigure modern states, which often subject those claiming disability benefits to intrusive surveillance – a process which, as Nancy Hirschmann and Beth Linker (2014) have argued, demotes disabled citizens to the status of “dependents”. Matthew Dillion (2017), however, has demonstrated that the dokimasia was simply a standard feature of democratic fiscal oversight; not only the pension beneficiaries (the adunatoi), but also magistrates who spent state money were similarly scrutinised. Given this effort to distance the process from the spectacularisation of disabled bodies, therefore, it is striking that the speaker in Lysias 24 - the key rhetorical source for the disability pension – repeatedly foregrounds the visibility of his impairment. As I hope to show, a close reading of this speech reveals that the speaker utilises the display of his person to refocus the debate onto his impairment and away from financial questions. His rhetorical strategy meanwhile should be understood alongside other displays of bodies in civic spaces which mobilise affective responses, such as the presentation of the war orphans during the city Dionysia. The use of physical display in Lysias 24, however, demonstrates the true complexity of the technique, since the speech simultaneously positions the speaker’s disabled body as an integral part of the civic collective. The move elicits empathy, rather than sympathy, framing the speaker as an unfortunate everyman, rather than a pitiable ‘other’. By looking at the disability pension through the eyes of a beneficiary, therefore, this paper hopes to show that bodily display could be a democratising tool which foregrounded the inclusion of disabled bodies in the civic collective not their exclusion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conference Programme

Programme 09:00 - 09:15 Welcome and intro Dr Jane Draycott, University of Glasgow 09:15-10:15 Keynote Prof Adrienne Mayor, Stanford University 10:15-11:15 Panel 1: Metamorphosis of Bodies Dr Tanika Koosmen, University of Newcastle, Australia [Dis]Playing Changing Bodies: Metamorphic Greco-Roman Myths as “Display” of Form Dr Ryan Denson, University of Exeter: Pickled Tritons: The Bodily Display of (Divine) Cryptids in the Roman Empire COFFEE BREAK 11:15 – 11:30 11:30 - 12:30 Panel 2: First Impressions/Judgement of Bodies Jasmine Sahu-Hough, PhD candidate - Yale University: “The Sort of Man You All See Me To Be”: Visible Disability and Citizenship in Classical Athens Dr Dan Mills, Georgia Institute of Technology: Physiognomic Disability in Literary, Statuarial, and Numismatic Depictions of Claudius 12:30 - 13:30 Panel 3: Bodies of Servants Dr Anastasia Meintani, Universität Wien: Bodily Display in the Context of the Banquet Shreya Sharma, Independent Scholar: Visual Arts and British Impe...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 pr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Abstract: Visual Arts and British Imperialism in India

 Shreya Sharma, independent scholar. shreyasharma0912@gmail.com              Visual Arts and British Imperialism in India   The British Imperialism played an important role in determining the portrayal of India and its inhabitants during the British Colonization. Portraits were a remembrance of lives and times spent in India. It was an impression of its peoples and surroundings which had to be brought back for display and for showing to members of families and friends at home in Britain. This incentive led to portrayal of the inhabitants as rural, uncivilized and illiterate. They were portrayed as a society who had no “proper” system to function which “legitimized” the British Invasion. These were portrayed through paintings and statues that travelled back to Britain for the Great exhibition amongst others. These portrayal of the inhabitants as illiterate propagated the idea that natives of India make excellent se...
Post a Comment
Read more