Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World: Blighted Bodies

Kristina Richardson

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August, 2012
Cloth, 160 pages, 4
ISBN: 978-0-7486-4507-7
Edinburgh University Press
$95.00

Did you know that blue eyes, baldness, bad breath and boils were all considered bodily 'blights', as were cross eyes, lameness and deafness? What assumptions about bodies influenced this particular vision of physical difference? How did blighted people view their own bodies? Through close analyses of miniature paintings, personal letters, (auto)biographies, travel narratives, erotic poetry, religious polemics, diaristic chronicles and theological tracts, you will learn about cultural views and lived experiences of disability and difference.

Related Subjects

• Medieval History

About the Author

Kristina Richardson is an Assistant Professor of History at Queens College, City University of New York, and is Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institut für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft, University of Münster, Germany.

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