Book Reviews by Simon Jarrett
Review of: New lenses on intellectual DisabilityJenniferClegg.,Routledge, 2020 ISBN 13: 978‐0‐367‐33502‐1 pp. 137 hardback £120.00 eBook £40.49
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2021
Review of: Discovering Camphill: New Perspectives, Research and Developments
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2011
Review of: Recovering Disability in Early Modern England
H-Disability Net, 2014
No abstract availabl
Review of: Development: The history of a psychological concept .Christopher Goodey, Cambridge University Press,2021. ISBN: 9781108980845, £85
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2022
Review of: ‘Why we disagree about human nature’ (eds. Hannon and Lewins)
History of the Human Sciences , 2019
https://www.histhum.com/what-common-nature-can-exist/
H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (H-disability), 2019
A review of Sabine Arnaud's 'On hysteria: the invention of a medical category between 1670 and 18... more A review of Sabine Arnaud's 'On hysteria: the invention of a medical category between 1670 and 1820', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015
Published by H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Scinces (H-disability) https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45843
H-Net Reviews (in the Humanities and Social Sciences), May 2014
Any addition to the sparse body of work on disability in the early modern period is welcome, and ... more Any addition to the sparse body of work on disability in the early modern period is welcome, and in Recovering Disability in Early Modern England, Allison P. Hobgood and David Houston Wood have brought together an intriguing and stimulating collection of essays ranging across subjects as diverse as dwarf aesthetics, disability humor, and even the impact of a restaging of Richard III in the post-Communist Czech Republic. Meaningful and substantial sources are always a problem for any early modernist seeking to unearth the conceptual, cultural, and discursive assumptions that formed meanings for disability in this period. This collection draws primarily on literary sources from prose and poetic narratives and staged drama. Hobgood and Wood choose as their underlying conceptual theme Rosemary Garland-Thompson's idea of "the stare," how those who see themselves as normative grapple with the concept of the nonnormative body by staring, often with surprise, at people formed or behaving in an unfamiliar way. Literary and other cultural productions are of course an interesting vehicle through which to examine this idea of the stare, and the returned gaze that it invites. Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell's concept of the "narrative prosthesis," where deformity is invariably used as metaphor to symbolize disharmony, unbalance, and internal dysfunction, thereby providing a narrative crutch to the plot as it limps to its conclusion, provides a useful underpinning for many of the contributions. There are also interesting attempts to delve beyond this one-dimensional metaphorical straitjacket, and to examine disability as disability in a range of cultural depictions.
Review of: A history of intelligence and 'intellectual disability': the shaping of Psychology in early modern Europe: C F Goodey, Ashgate, Farnham, 2011
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40.2, 2012
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39.3, 2011
Journal Articles by Simon Jarrett
'Idiots in Eighteenth-Century London Families and Communities: Evidence form Old Bailey Trials
Family and Community History 25:2 pp 140-163, 2022
This article examines fifty trials held at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London between 1690 a... more This article examines fifty trials held at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London between 1690 and 1830 which featured individuals (mostly defendants) characterised as ‘idiots’ or similar, broadly correlating with people characterised as people with learning disabilities today. Evidence from the trials, including witness testimony, character witness statements, court verdicts and testimony from the defendants themselves suggest that many lived integrated lives in their families and communities rather than being marginalised or abused. Many worked, and were supported by social networks of family, neighbours and work mates, including employers. There is barely any evidence of institutionalisation. The early years of the nineteenth century saw a hardening of attitudes in court verdicts and testimony, and reduction in the tolerance and acceptance shown in earlier trials, presaging the institutionalisation of the idiot population which occurred later in the nineteenth century.
The history of the history of learning disability
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2022
The British journal of learning disabilities: A history
British Journal of Learning Disabilities, Apr 28, 2022
Fifty years of the British journal of learning disabilities: The power of the past
British Journal of Learning Disabilities
The London Journal, 2017
This article examines the effect of large-scale immigration into London throughout the eighteenth... more This article examines the effect of large-scale immigration into London throughout the eighteenth century, mostly from the English provinces, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. As the city expanded and old affiliations to parish and neighbourhood reduced, the question of identity became problematic for those who lived in the Metropolis. It is argued that shared humour expressed through jokes and slang, largely directed at newcomers and visitors to London, played a part in building shared identity for those who lived in the city’s disparate and distinct parts. Many of those who indulged in this humour were recent immigrants to the city themselves, who used it to assert their status as embedded inhabitants of London. Disparaging jokes and language about the inhabitants of different regions and nations of the Kingdom outside London could even come from those who originated from the same areas, and were a means of defining their new status as insiders in the city. Jokes and slang played a par...
Reflections on writing and exhibiting learning disability history: commentary on “Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus: Our Heritage”
Tizard Learning Disability Review, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to comment on the article “Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus: O... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to comment on the article “Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus: Our Heritage – the role of heritage exhibitions in tackling social isolation.” Design/methodology/approach This provides some further reflection and points for discussion on topics arising from the themes in the original article. Findings Issues are raised about the medicalisation of conditions and the ways in which a social and cultural model of disability challenges preconceptions and assumptions about personhood and victim status. Reference is made to the broader context of hidden histories and the ways in which people with learning disabilities are now taking active roles in reclaiming the story of their lives in the past and now. Originality/value The paper aims to raise awareness of critical issues of learning disability history prompted by the original paper.
International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 2015
This paper critically examines the term 'community' as applied to people with intellectual disabi... more This paper critically examines the term 'community' as applied to people with intellectual disabilities over time and aims to describe its shifting conceptualisation from the eighteenth century to the present day. Unpublished documentary sources from Old Bailey criminal trials in the eighteenth century, the Earlswood Idiot asylum in the mid-nineteenth-century and earlytwentieth-century government reports have been used to explore historical changes in the concept of community. The word community is historically contingent both in its past and present uses. Its meaning has been adapted to strengthen and justify professional claims to own, treat and manage people with intellectual disabilities. Inclusion and community acceptance were normative in the eighteenth century. In later medicalized institutionalization programmes the meaning of community was subverted to endorse and vindicate professional claims. It has been further adapted since deinstitutionalization to support contemporary claims for the social model of community inclusion. Today's language of inclusion emanates from these historical conceptual shifts, masking a set of unconscious assumptions and meanings attached to the status of intellectually disabled people. The modern concept of community is based on an assumption that people with intellectual disabilities have always been excluded. In the collective memory, it has been forgotten that they were, before the asylum, natural members of community embedded within social, economic, and familial networks. It is communities themselves that must adapt and remodel rather than trying to remodel those people they originally excluded.
History of the Human Sciences, 2020
A conception of the idiotic mind was used to substantiate late 19th-century theories of mental ev... more A conception of the idiotic mind was used to substantiate late 19th-century theories of mental evolution. A new school of animal/comparative psychologists attempted from the 1870s to demonstrate that evolution was a mental as well as a physical process. This intellectual enterprise necessitated the closure, or narrowing, of the ‘consciousness gap’ between human and animal species. A concept of a quasi-non-conscious human mind, set against conscious intention and ability in higher animals, provided an explanatory framework for the human–animal continuum and the evolution of consciousness. The article addresses a significant lacuna in the historiographies of intellectual disability, animal science, and evolutionary psychology, where the application of a conception of human idiocy to advance theories of consciousness evolution has not hitherto been explored. These ideas retain contemporary resonance in ethology and cognitive psychology, and in the theory of ‘speciesism’, outlined by Pe...
Die Studie untersucht, wie in Ratgebern über Angst geschrieben wird und wie sich dies mit der Zei... more Die Studie untersucht, wie in Ratgebern über Angst geschrieben wird und wie sich dies mit der Zeit verändert. Ihr liegen 18 deutschsprachige Ratgeber gegen Angst zugrunde, die zwischen 1985 und 2017 erschienen sind. Mit text-, diskurs-und korpuslinguistischen Methoden werden in diesem Korpus sprachliche Muster ermittelt und ausgehend von Prämissen der kulturanalytischen Linguistik daraufhin interpretiert, welche Perspektiven auf und Umgangsweisen mit Angst sie nahelegen. Vorgestellt und gedeutet werden Muster im Aufbau und hinsichtlich der behandelten Themen, des Weiteren Muster in der Bestimmung von Angst, in der Formulierung von Zielen für die Adressierten sowie in konkreten Ratschlägen bzw. Instruktionen. Die Untersuchung ergibt, dass Angst in den Ratgebern gesamthaft gesehen fast nur als individuelle und kaum als kollektive Emotion erscheint. Als solche kann und soll Angst nicht etwa als menschliche Existenzbedingung ertragen, sondern aktiv reduziert oder mittels anderer Gefühle entkräftet werden. Dazu ist laut den Ratgebern nicht unbedingt die persönliche Hilfe von anderen notwendig, sondern dies kann und soll auch durch Selbststeuerung erfolgen. Die Ratgeber oszillieren damit zwischen der Ermächtigung der/des Einzelnen zur Einwirkung auf die eigenen Gefühle und ihrer/seiner Belastung mit der Verantwortung, die eigenen Gefühle so zu regulieren, dass sie der sozialen Norm entsprechen.
Book Chapters by Simon Jarrett
Understanding Personhood
Intellectual Disabilities: Toward Inclusion (7th edition) Eds: H Atherton & D Crickmore, 2022
People with intellectual disabilities have often been regarded as lacking personhood. New models ... more People with intellectual disabilities have often been regarded as lacking personhood. New models of personhood attempt to restore personhood to this group, but the denial of personhood continues today. Rights are important for people with intellectual disabilities but are only effective if accompanied by inclusion and belonging.
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Book Reviews by Simon Jarrett
Published by H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Scinces (H-disability) https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45843
Journal Articles by Simon Jarrett
Book Chapters by Simon Jarrett