Life unseen A story of blindness
Book - 2023
"Imagine a world without sight. Is it dark and gloomy? Is it terrifying and isolating? Or is it simply a state of not seeing, which we have demonised and sentimentalized over the centuries? And why is blindness so frightening? In this fascinating historical adventure, Broadcaster and author Selina Mills takes us on a journey through the history of blindness in Western Culture to discover that blindness is not so dark after all. Inspired by her own experience of losing her sight as she forged a successful journalistic career, Life Unseen takes us through a personal and unsentimental historical quest through the lives, stories and achievements of blind people - as well as those sighted people who sought to patronize, demonize and fix the...m. From the blind poet Homer, through the myths and moralising of early medieval culture to the scientific and medical discoveries of the Enlightenment and modern times, the story of blindness turns out to be a story of our whole culture"--
- Subjects
- Genres
- Biographies
History - Published
-
London ; New York :
Bloomsbury Academic
2023.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- xii, 272 pages ; 24 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN
- 9781848856905
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- 1. Imagining it - Nandy and mythic heroes
- 2. Living with it - dark versus light
- 3. Faking it - false eyes, false sight, and the Devil
- 4. Fixing it - the lure of the cure
- 5. Learning it - education, education, education
- 6. Reading it - pure fiction
- 7. Inventing it - the advantages of blindness (and disadvantages of tech)
- Conclusion What is blindness anyway?
- Bibliography
- Index
