University of Chicago Press
Osiris, Volume 39: Disability and the History of Science Volume 39
Key Metrics
- Jaipreet Virdi
- University of Chicago Press
- Paperback
- 9780226835624
- -
- -
- Science > History
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Disability has been a central--if unacknowledged--force in the history of science, as in the scientific disciplines. Across historical epistemology and laboratory research, disability has been good to think with an object of investigation made to yield generalizable truths. Yet disability is rarely imagined to be the source of expertise, especially the kind of expertise that produces (rational, neutral, universal) scientific knowledge.
This volume of Osiris places disability history and the history of science in conversation to foreground disability standpoints, disabled scientists, and disability sciencing (engagement with scientific tools and processes). Looking beyond paradigms of medicalization and industrialization, the volume authors examine knowledge production about disability from the ancient world to the present in fields ranging from mathematics to the social sciences, resulting in groundbreaking histories of taken-for-granted terms such as impairment, infirmity, epidemics, and shōgai.
Some contributors trace the disabling impacts of scientific theories and practices in the contexts of war, factory labor, insurance, and colonialism; others excavate racial and settler ableism in the history of scientific facts, protocols, and collections; still others query the boundaries between scientific, lay, and disability expertise. Contending that disability alters method, authors bring new sources and interpretation techniques to the history of science, overturn familiar narratives, apply disability analyses to established terms and archives, and discuss accessibility issues for disabled historians. The resulting volume announces a disability history of science.
Author Bio
Jaipreet Virdi is a historian of medicine, technology, and disability. Her research and teaching interests include the history of medicine, the history of science, disability history, disability technologies, and material/visual culture studies. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto (2014).
Dr. Virdi’s first book, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (University of Chicago Press, 2020), rethinks how therapeutic negotiation and the influence of pseudo-medicine shaped what it meant to be a "normal" deaf citizen in American history. Examining how deaf/deafened individuals attempted to amplify their hearing through various types of surgical, proprietary, and/or technological "deafness cures," the book charts the dissemination of ideas about hearing loss from beyond medical elites to popular culture and the popular imagination.
She is also working on three other projects. Objects of Disability is an online resource database of historical artefacts used by, and/or crafted by, Canadians with disabilities, with the site scheduled to launch late 2020. Her second book project, From Prevention to Conservation: American Research on Hearing Impairment, 1910-1960 focuses on the network of specialists and services that aimed to improve the hearing of American citizens.
By analyzing how various factions aimed to normalize hearing impairment through military rehabilitation efforts, social organizations, and advanced otological techniques, this project historicizes how deafness became construed as an urgent public health matter. Additionally, Dr. Virdi is collaborating with Dr. Coreen McGuire tracing the historical roots of scientific research on disabilities—such as deafness and breathlessness—in Britain and the role of women scientists.
This project, tentatively titled Phyllis M. Tookey Kerridge and the Science of Disability in Interwar Britain especially focuses on how scientific instruments were used by women to demonstrate the value of their research against criticism and assert control over disabled bodies.
Dr. Virdi serves as Contributing Editor of the journal Pharmacy in History, Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of the Natural Sciences, and co-Editor of Communiqué, the newsletter of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science. She is also Managing Editor of the Disability History Association’s blog, All of Us.
Education
- 2014 University of Toronto
Ph.D. in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
- 2008 University of Toronto
M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
- 2006 York University
B.A., Honors in Philosophy of Science
Source: University of Delaware
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