Disability and Sympathetic Sociability in Enlightenment Scotland: The Case of Thomas Blacklock

Packham, Catherine

doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.2007.tb00343.x

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Free from distracting visual stimuli they were "more attentive to their own internal oeconomy, to the particular notices of good and evil impressed on their hearts" ( [Blacklock], 1791, p. 289). As such, blindness had the potential to bring wisdom, insight and emotional sincerity (Packham, 2007).…”

Section: Disability Disruption and Well Beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historia de la discapacidad e historia de las emociones: reflexiones sobre Gran Bretaña en el siglo XVIII

Turner

2016

Asclepio

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Both Disability History and the History of Emotions have expanded significantly as fields of enquiry but despite sharing common interests in health, well being and difference there has been little interaction between scholars working in these areas. This article suggests ways in which history's "emotional turn" can shed light on disability in the past, using the case study of Britain in the eighteenth century. Theories of the "passions", "sentiments" and "affections" were used to describe causes of impairment and to prescribe appropriate responses. Although this was a period in which disability was commonly regarded as a "miserable" or "pitiable" state, a close reading of a variety of sources from medical texts to newspapers and periodicals reveals that the degree of "unhappiness" associated with disability depended on timing, context and the symbolic significance of certain impairments.KEY WORDS: Disability; Emotion; Pity; Sympathy; Happiness. RESUMEN:Tanto la Historia de la Discapacidad como la Historia de las Emociones han crecido de manera significativa como campos de investigación. Sin embargo, a pesar de compartir intereses comunes en relación a la salud, el bienestar y la diferencia ha habido poca interacción entre los investigadores que han trabajado en dichas áreas. Este artículo sugiere, usando como estudio de caso la Gran Bretaña del siglo XVIII, la manera en la que el "giro emocional" de la historia puede arrojar luz sobre la discapacidad en el pasado. En esa época distintas teorías sobre las "pasiones", los "sentimientos" y los "afectos" fueron usadas para describir las causas de las deficiencias o para proporcionar respuestas adecuadas a las mismas. Aunque éste fue un periodo en el que la discapacidad era normalmente vista como una "desgracia" o como un estado que producía "lástima", una lectura detallada de un conjunto variado de fuentes que incluye desde textos médicos a periódicos y revistas revela que el grado de "infelicidad" asociado a la discapacidad dependía del momento, el contexto y el significado simbólico de ciertas deficiencias.

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Section: Disability Disruption and Well Beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historia de la discapacidad e historia de las emociones: reflexiones sobre Gran Bretaña en el siglo XVIII

Turner

2016

Asclepio

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Instructing the Young and Comforting the Aged in the Norwich and Norfolk Institution for the Indigent Blind, ca. 1805–55

Ottaway,

Smart,

Schultz

2024

J. Br. Stud.

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This article considers the ways that Enlightenment ideas and practices shaped the founding of the Norwich and Norfolk Institution for the Indigent Blind, and then analyzes the disparate approaches to the aged versus the working-age blind in its first half-century (ca. 1805–55). While we see change over time, we also find distinctive continuity in the ongoing close connections inmates kept with Norwich civic life and family and friends; this was emphatically not a closed asylum. The institution demonstrated consistent commitment to helping its pupils towards self-sufficiency, with optimism about what the blind could (literally) turn their hands to. Nonetheless, the Norwich Institution was disciplinary, actively seeking to produce docile, productive bodies among its blind pupils, both through education and through work habits. Time, labor, and moral discipline increased for pupils over the course of its first half-century, and girls and women were pushed into less economically rewarding work practices. Equally important, while it had an unwavering, humanitarian commitment to providing for the aged blind, its insistent characterization of these inmates as helpless and pitiable limited the potential of the institution to facilitate the well-being of its older residents.

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Forms of Enlightenment: Embodied Beings in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Packham¹

2012

Eighteenth-Century Vitalism

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Disability and Sympathetic Sociability in Enlightenment Scotland: The Case of Thomas Blacklock

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Historia de la discapacidad e historia de las emociones: reflexiones sobre Gran Bretaña en el siglo XVIII

Historia de la discapacidad e historia de las emociones: reflexiones sobre Gran Bretaña en el siglo XVIII

Instructing the Young and Comforting the Aged in the Norwich and Norfolk Institution for the Indigent Blind, ca. 1805–55

Forms of Enlightenment: Embodied Beings in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

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