Prostheses in Antiquity

Abstract

Harvard's Center for Hellenic StudiesHiSoMA, Lyon 'Prosthetic imagination' in Greek literature 1 If 'prostheses are discursive frameworks, as well as material artefacts', 2 this chapter will deliberately focus on the discursive side. My aim is to investigate the 'prosthetic imagination', e.g. the ways in which 'the prosthetic' may be used as a metaphor to think about the boundaries between objects and bodies in ancient Greek literature.'Prosthetic imagination' in the modern times has been well analysed and criticized by scholars reflecting about disabilities. According to Jain and Sobchack, the trope of prosthesis has been used from the 1990s as an improper tool for reflecting upon human-technology relationships: after the 'cyborg' trend tarnished by 'academic overuse', writes Sobchack, 'the prosthetic' is the 'new, sexy metaphor' that 'has become tropological currency for describing a vague and shifting constellation of relationships among bodies, technologies and subjectivities.' 3 In her ironical critique of the trope, Sobchack draws from her own experience of a prosthetic leg to contradict fantasies that attribute to prostheses a status of quasi living and autonomous beings ('I know intimately my prosthetic leg's essential inertia and lack of motivating volition'). 4 In 1999, Jain had criticized how this idealized metaphor often masked the fact that prostheses could create alienation and deficiency rather than supplying it. 5 In 2006 Serlin adds in 2006 that this techno-animist account of human-prosthesis relationship is perhaps another way to discriminate disabled people, by excessively emphasizing the object agency rather than the human one. 6 These convergent critiques are then based on methodological and ethical grounds. In this very volume on prostheses in antiquity, Adams points out that 'the metaphorical use of the term [prosthesis] is somewhat confusing', 1 I would like to warmly thank Jane Draycott for her support and for having read my paper at the 'Prostheses in Antiquity' conference, in which I was unable to take part physically. Her helpful comments were greatly appreciated. I am also grateful to Professor Nagy and the staff of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies for having provided me with ideal conditions to write this chapter.

Disability Studies and the Classical Body

“…In 1996, Lawrence Bliquez published what was, even then, a cursory and incomplete survey in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, yet despite the increasing interest in the history and archaeology of medicine in the classical world over the last two decades, to date no more extensive study has appeared (Bliquez, 1996; this was inspired by a shorter piece of work, Bliquez, 1983). More recently, my research into ancient prostheses has resulted in the edited volume Prostheses in Antiquity, the proceedings of a workshop held in 2015 that was funded by the Wellcome Trust, published in 2018 (Draycott, 2018a). 1 This comprised eight chapters, each one dealing with a different type of prosthesis or an issue relevant to the subject.…”