Where Paralytics Walk and the Blind See

Autor*innen

• Mary R. Dunn

Parameter

• Invalidität
• Sachliteratur

Mehr zum Buch

In an era dominated by modern biomedicine and global pandemics, illness and disability are often viewed solely as scientific challenges. However, historical perspectives reveal that these conditions have been interpreted in diverse ways throughout time. This work presents an alternative view shaped by the Christian-Catholic culture of early modern French Canada. In a society that embraced a Christian notion of salvation, sickness and disability transcended mere physical ailments; they were imbued with moral and spiritual significance. These conditions served as opportunities for demonstrating virtue, inviting charity, facilitating redemption, and prompting conversion. The author examines four historical sources: Jesuit accounts from New France detailing sickness and healing among Indigenous peoples; narratives from Canada's first hospital's institutional history published in 1751; representations of disability in a late seventeenth-century hagiography of a revered nun; and a dossier from the early eighteenth century supporting a Franciscan Friar's canonization. By analyzing these sources alongside her personal experiences as a mother of a child with a disability, the author seeks to understand the context of these early modern beliefs, acknowledging their accompanying cruelty and intolerance. This exploration encourages critical reflection on contemporary views of sickness and disability and challenges existing historiographic

• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Einband: Hardcover