Idiocy : a cultural history
McDonagh, PatrickAuthor
Liverpool : Liverpool University Press,
2008.
The term 'idiot' is a damning put down, whether deployed on the playground or in the board room. People stigmatized as being 'intellectually disabled' today must confront variants of the fear and pity with which society has greeted them for centuries. In this ground-breaking new study Patrick McDonagh explores how artistic, scientific and sociological interpretations of idiocy work symbolically and ideologically in society. Drawing upon a broad spectrum of British, French and American resources including literary works (Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy, Dickens Barnaby Rudge, Conrad's The Secret Agent), pedagogical works (Itard's The Wild Boy of Aveyron, Sequin's Traitement moral, hygiene et education des idiots, and Howe's On the courses of Idiocy), medical and scientific papers (Philippe Pinel, Henry Maudsley, William Ireland, John Langdon Downs, Isaac Kerlin, Henry Goddard) and sociological writings (Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Beames' The Rookeries of London, Dugdal's The Jukes), Idiocy: A Cultural History offers a rich study of the history and representation of mental disability.
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
Introduction: idiocy, culture and human relations -- 'Stripping our own hearts naked': William Wordsworth and John Wilson read 'The idiot boy' -- A 'pupil of innocent nature!' The wild boy of Aveyron goes to Paris -- Diminished men: masculinity and idiocy -- Essential women: feminity and idiocy -- Holy fools, witty fools, depraved fools: folly, innocence and sin -- History, society, economy: holy fools and idiots come home in nineteenth-century literature -- Barnaby Rudge, idiocy and paternalism: assisting the 'poor idiot' -- Innocence, philanthropy and economics: the new 'asylum' idiot -- Sensational idiocy -- 'The sins of the fathers': idiocy, evolution and degeneration -- Danger and degeneracy: the threat of the urban idiot -- The problem of the feeble-minded: the Royal Commission, eugenics and eternal chaos -- Epilogue.
The term 'idiot' is a damning put down, whether deployed on the playground or in the board room. People stigmatized as being 'intellectually disabled' today must confront variants of the fear and pity with which society has greeted them for centuries. In this ground-breaking new study Patrick McDonagh explores how artistic, scientific and sociological interpretations of idiocy work symbolically and ideologically in society. Drawing upon a broad spectrum of British, French and American resources including literary works (Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy, Dickens Barnaby Rudge, Conrad's The Secret Agent), pedagogical works (Itard's The Wild Boy of Aveyron, Sequin's Traitement moral, hygiene et education des idiots, and Howe's On the courses of Idiocy), medical and scientific papers (Philippe Pinel, Henry Maudsley, William Ireland, John Langdon Downs, Isaac Kerlin, Henry Goddard) and sociological writings (Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Beames' The Rookeries of London, Dugdal's The Jukes), Idiocy: A Cultural History offers a rich study of the history and representation of mental disability.
Description based on print version record.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Literature
Disabled Persons
Socioeconomic Factors
Sociology
History, Modern 1601-
Persons
Humanities
Social Sciences
History
Population Characteristics
Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena
Health Care
Named Groups
Mentally Disabled Persons
Social Conditions
History, 19th Century
Medicine in Literature
Social Welfare & Social Work
Social Sciences
Disabilities