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Difference and disability in the medieval Islamic world : blighted bodies / Kristina L. Richardson

Author
Richardson, Kristina L.
Published
Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2012]
Copyright Date
©2012
Physical Description
1 online resource (ix, 158 pages) : illustrations
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Open Access Unrestricted online access
Contents
Introduction ---- 1. Ahat in Islamic Thought --- 2. Literary Networks in Mamluk Cairo --- 3. Recollecting and Reconfiguring Afflicted Literary Bodies --- 4. Transgressive Bodies, Transgressive Hadith --- 5. Public Insults and Undoing Shame: Censoring the Blighted Body.
Summary
Outlines the complex significance of bodies in the late Medieval central Arab Islamic lands. Did you know that blue eyes, baldness, bad breath and boils were all considered bodily 'blights' by Medieval Arabs, 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 anecdotes, personal letters, biographies and autobiographies, erotic poetry, non-binding legal opinions, diaristic chronicles and theological tracts, Kristina Richardson brings the cultural views and experiences of disability and difference in the medieval Islamic world to life. This title investigates the place of physically different, disabled and ill individuals in medieval Islam. It is organised around the lives and works of 6 Muslim men, each highlighting a different aspect of bodily difference. It addresses broad cultural questions relating to social class, religious orthodoxy, moral reputation, drug use, male homoeroticism and self-representation in the public sphere. It moves towards a coherent theory of medieval disability and bodily aesthetics in Islamic cultural traditions.
Subject(s)
ISBN
9780748645084 (electronic bk.)
074864508X (electronic bk.)
9780748664900
0748664904
9780748664917
0748664912
9780748645077 (print)
0748645071 (print)
Note
Based on the author's thesis.
Knowledge Unlatched
View MARC record | catkey: 27682432