Shaping Intellectual Disabilities in Early Modern Culture

Explores how conceptions of intellectual disability shaped or were shaped by culture and society in England, Europe and beyond in the period from 1500–1700.

Shaping Intellectual Disabilities in Early Modern Culture is the first edited collection focusing completely on intellectual disability in the early modern period. It offers in-depth analyses of texts from Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Rabelais, and others, alongside medical and legal treatises, court cases, and political pamphlets. Through social, political or religious bias, intellectual disability could be mapped onto a wider/different range of individuals than it is today. The range of essays included in this book gives a representation of the multifacetedness of the concept by analysing the recurrence of intellectual disability (in the form of characters or tropes) in literary and non-literary genres across various countries. Bringing new case studies to the fore, or reevaluating classic ones (such as Shakespeare’s wise fools) through the tools of critical disability studies, this collection showcases intellectual disability histories as products of the interaction between the individual and different contexts or communities sharing political, religious, or colonial interests and ideologies. The book therefore probes the social, cultural and environmental aspects of disability and disablement, also inviting connections between disability and other minority statuses, particularly race.