A seasonal special from the History of Science, Philosophy of Science and Technology, Science and Belief, and Science and Disability reading groups, on
Tuesday 10 December 2019
5pm - 6pm
Room B32, 26 Gordon Square, UCL
A Christmas Carol: Disability Conceptualised through Empathy and the Philosophy of ‘Technologically Useful Bodies’, by Ester Vidović.
From the abstract:
"The article explores how two cultural models which were dominant in Great Britain during the Victorian era – the model based on the philosophy of ‘technologically useful bodies’ and the Christian model of empathy – were connected with the understanding of disability. Both cultural models are metaphorically constituted and based on the ‘container’ and ‘up and down’ image schemas respectively. The intersubjective character of cultural models is foregrounded, in particular, in the context of conceiving of abstract concepts such as emotions and attitudes. The issue of disability is addressed from a cognitive linguistic approach to literary analysis while studying the reflections of the two cultural models on the portrayal of the main characters of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol."
This is the last scheduled History of Science reading group for this term, the next will be on Tuesday 14 January 2020, details to follow. Follow us on Twitter and do in touch if you have any suggestions for this or future reading groups.
We alternate the Tuesday evening slot with two reading groups on Philosophy of Science and Technology and Science and Belief. The STS departmental website lists all the reading groups run by students in the department. Check out the History of Science reading group website for information on past papers, how the reading group works, and lists of journals in the history of science.
Vidović, Ester, ‘A Christmas Carol: Disability Conceptualised through Empathy and the Philosophy of “Technologically Useful Bodies”’, International Research in Children’s Literature, 6.2 (2013), 176–91 <https://doi.org/10.3366/ircl.2013.0097>