Resources
The following bibliography is drawn largely from an MA-level introductory class on disability. It’s one of many possible ways into this broad and evolving field.
General
Davis, L. J. (ed.), Beginning with Disability: A Primer (New York, 2017).
Davis, L. J. (ed.), The Disability Studies Reader (Abingdon, 5th ed., 2017).
Eyler, J. R., Hsy, J. and T. V. Pearman (ed.), A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages (London, 2023).
Eyler, J. R. (ed.), Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Farnham, 2010).
Eun-Jung Row, J., ‘Marvelous Monstrosity and Disability’s Delights: New Directions in Premodern Critical Disability Studies’, Exemplaria, Volume 34:1 (2022), pp. 87-101.
Garland-Thomson, R., Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (New York, 1997), esp. pp. 55-80.
Garland-Thomson, R., Staring: How We Look (Oxford, 2009).
Godden, R. H. and A. S. Mittman (ed.), Monstrosity, Disability, and the Posthuman in the Medieval and Early Modern World (Cham, 2019).
Goodley, D., Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (London, 2nd ed., 2017).
Kafer, A., Feminist, Queer, Crip (Bloomington, IN, 2013) (esp. pp. 25-28 for crip time).
Metzler, I., Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages (London, 2006).
Michalko, R., The Difference That Disability Makes (Philadelphia, PA, 2002), esp. pp. 113-28.
Mitchell, D. T., Antebi, S. and S. L. Snyder (ed.), The Matter of Disability: Materiality, Biopolitics, Crip Affect (Ann Arbor, 2019), esp. pp. 39-47.
Nowicki, A.-R., ‘Enfreakment: Disability as Narrative Spectacle in Theodor Storm's “Eine Malerarbeit” and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's “Die arme Kleine”’, Feminist German Studies, 35 (2019), pp. 26-52.
Siebers, T., ‘Disability as Masquerade’, Literature and Medicine, 23:1 (2004), pp. 1–22.
St Pierre, J., 'The Construction of the Disabled Speaker: Locating Stuttering in Disability Studies', in Literature, Speech Disorders, and Disability, ed. C. Eagle (Abingdon, 2013).
Byzantine Disability
Efthymiadis, S., ‘The Disabled in the Byzantine Empire’, in Disability in Antiquity, ed. C. Laes (London, 2017), pp. 388–402.
Hatzaki, M., Beauty and the Male Body in Byzantium: Perceptions and Representations in Art and Text (Basingstoke, 2009), Chapter 1 'The Byzantine Ideal of Beauty: Definitions and Perceptions', pp. 7-32. [does not explicitly engage with disability but is very important for understanding perceptions of disabled bodies]
Laes, C., 'Power, Infirmity and ‘Disability’. Five Case Stories on Byzantine Emperors and Their Impairments', ByzantinoSlavica, 77 (2019), pp. 211-229. [and other articles by the same author on Byzantine emperors]
Maude, I. and M. Perisanidi, 'Transmisogyny, Ableism and Compulsory Cisness: Case Studies from Byzantium', Past & Present, Volume 268, Issue 1, August (2025), pp. 225–249.
Peers, G., 'The Iconography of Healing and Damaged Bodies in the Menil Collection and the Kariye Camii: Methodological Reflections', in Iconography Beyond the Crossroads: Image, Meaning, and Method in Medieval Art, ed. P. A. Patton and C. A. Fernandez (University Park, 2022), pp. 121–146.
Perisanidi, M., Masculinity in Byzantium, c. 1000-1200 (Cambrdige, 2024), Chapter 3, 'Gregorios Antiochos: Disabled Bodied and Desired Becomings', pp. 73-102.
Ransohoff, J., 'Blinding as Punishment and Politics in Byzantium', in A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Medieval Age, ed. K. Shoemaker (London, 2023), pp. 71-92.
Schmidt, T., 'Von blinden Feldherren und einem bedrängten Kaiser – Feldherrenbestellungen unter Isaakios II. Angelos (1185–1195)', In Vom Konklave zum Assessment-Center: Personalentscheidungen im historischen Wandel, ed. C. Cornelißen and A. Fahrmeir (Darmstadt, 2021), pp. 50-71.
Other Useful Resources
Stuttering Commons and Handbook with section Byzantine Speech
Laes' Podcast on Disability in Byzantium & Friends
Ransohoff’s podcast on ‘Blinding in Byzantium & Friends
Medieval Disability Sourcebook: Western Europe, ed. Cameron Hunt McNabb