Exploring social representations and attitudes toward disability in the 17th century and today
About this Event
Festival of Social Science Week
Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester
Using insights from history and disability studies, this event will draw from Shakespearean England to explore social representations and attitudes toward disability in the context of military life, then and today.
It will feature a brief talk by Professor Andrew Hopper to introduce the video, produced by actors from the RSC and two freelance actors with disabilities. The production includes a series of video monologues of extracts from Shakespeare’s plays, as well as dramatised petitions that survive from wounded soldiers applying for the first state military pensions during Shakespeare’s day and the years immediately afterwards. These will be drawn from our www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk project. Although most petitions in the production (as in the archives) will concentrate on physical injuries, the soldiers’ and their communities’ struggles with emotional and mental difficulties as a result of war will also be evident.
The video outputs and recited petitions will be accompanied by discussion from experts including an academic from the Shakespeare Institute, early modern historians, disability studies scholars, representatives from arts and military organisations, and the actors themselves. In doing so insights and critical reflection on contemporary representation and attitudes toward disability, as well as equality and social support for those with disability, will be provided.
As well as providing illuminating and entertaining dramatization of petitions to the non-expert audience, we hope that this event will create fruitful discussion about the various similarities between difficulties people with disabilities faced then and continue facing today when applying for help, and how the attitudes have (or have not) changed over the centuries. Therefore, as well as providing some commentary from aforementioned event participants, the audience of the event will also be invited to participate in this discussion.
The short production was directed by Hal Chambers and edited by Assad Zaman.
Actors featured in this production are Ben Caplan, Philippa Cole, Andrew French, Amanda Hadingue, Greg Haiste, Vicky Hall, Avita Jay, Dyfrig Morris and Guy Rhys.
Image: Charity table painting from St Nicholas Church, Alcester, Warwickshire.