Bringing ancient disabilities and the emotions associated with them to present-day disabled people - their own stories in the past

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In scholarship and popular culture, the idea persists that attitudes towards disability in ancient Greece were hostile. The practice of killing disabled babies is widely proposed (Penrose 2015: 509); as is the belief that disabilities were the result of divine displeasure (Garland 2010: 59-61; Penrose 2015: 510). This pessimistic outlook has, however, been rebutted by some scholars (Rose 2003; Sneed 2018). I aim to build upon this ever-evolving Disability scholarship and, by integrating it with Emotion Studies, gain new insights into the lives of disabled people in Greece. The results of this research will be applied in an outreach setting and involve working with disabled people. I shall also examine the narrative tone and accessibility of the 'ancient disabled' in museums. The main objective is to make visible 'their stories in the past' while exploring whether emotions towards disability are cross-cultural. The first part of the project investigates how people in ancient Greece (non-disabled and disabled) felt towards disabled persons and disabilities. The research will engage with multiple sources of evidence dating to ca. 7th -4th century BC. These will include written sources (inscriptions, philosophical, literary, oratorical, medical, and legal texts) and material culture (sculpture, pots, votives, and architecture). The questions asked will explore the textual and visual language of disability, different life situations, and different treatments of disabled persons, in all its complexity. I shall build on the pioneering Unveiling Emotions project (PI Chaniotis 2012-21), which examines ancient sources not previously considered in Emotion Studies and provides new methodologies. My research will take these approaches further to incorporate disabled persons. To do so, I propose an interdisciplinary approach that has not yet been implemented in Classics - applying theories from Disability Studies and combining them with concepts from Emotion Studies. Seeing disability through the lenses of emotions will reveal the different rejection and/or acceptance strategies that the Greeks practised towards and by their disabled populace as well as how the latter's bodies and bodily experiences (their embodiment) were perceived. The second part of my project communicates the results of the first part to visitors and evaluates the presentation of ancient disability in present-day educational settings, specifically museums. It will examine the reception of ancient disability by contemporary disabled visitors and whether museums have adopted an adequately nuanced approach. I will conduct museum visits to study collections first-hand, deliver presentations on ancient disability, and organise workshops and discussions with disabled people to propose a new (better) way of displaying disability. This will build on the British Museum's 2020 study exploring the history of disability in their collection and continue previous work on the inclusion of disabled people in Classics - such as Deacy's Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum (2015) and her project on bringing myth to autistic children (2009-21). Disabled people are an under-represented and disadvantaged group in Classics (Leonard & Lovatt 2020; Sharples 2019); by working with them, the project aims to challenge the current assumptions about their place and importance in the field, and beyond academia.