Little Henrik, about six years old, sits in his wheelchair with bracers around the spastic arms to prevent them from contracting, so that the muscles don’t become too short. ‘He is a pretty boy, but ‘empty’, they say. But his eyes aren’t empty.
Recently Anaïs van Ertvelde has written opinion piece in Dutch for the Belgian newspaper DeMorgen entitled: “Mindervalide is geen synoniem van zielig, Meryl” (“Disability is not a synonym for pitiable, Meryl”), wherein she critically discusses the treatment of disability by Hollywood.
Malformed embryos in formalin, a school desk for wheelchair users at a former institution for intellectually disabled, and artfully staged portraits of people with Down syndrome dressed as kings, divas or superheroes: As diverse as the subject of disability can be, showing it in museums is generally considered a sensitive issue.
Conference: ‘Calendar Propaganda’ of Human Rights? Historical Perspectives on the United Nations’ Global Observances, Leiden University, The Hague Campus, 14-16 June, 2017.
The PhD candidates of our project are introduced in the newsletter of the Leiden Institute for History.
The preliminary programme of our first workshop (19-20 January) is published: Read the programme.
Welcome to the blog of the research project Rethinking Disability, based at Leiden University and funded by the European Research Council. In this project we investigate the global impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in historical perspective.
Workshop: ‘Whose Welfare? Fresh Perspectives on the Post-war Welfare State and its Global Entanglements’, Leiden, 19-20 January 2017