26 - Senses and Environment

This 20-minute paper will explore one of the common tropes associated with blindness – compensatory powers, senses or perception. It will combine a literary history of the trope, personal experience (as I am blind myself)… Read More »Blindness and the Extraordinary Compensatory Sense

Deaf men and women occupied an ambiguous place in Early Modern Europe. While some believed deaf people would not go to heaven, as this paper shows Lutheran, Catholic and Calvinist churches all devised ways for… Read More »Speaking in Hands: Preaching, Sign Language and Deafness in Early Modern England 1550-1650