Favorite TED talks about disability

-
By Ylva Söderfeldt

TED talks have become a hugely popular forum for public debate. The format consists of brief lectures, around twenty minutes long, presented in an entertaining, provocative, and popular way, to a live audience and openly available online. TED talks address a wide range of topics, from science, politics, and society, to personal stories. Quite a few of them relate to disability, for instance presenting high-tech protheses, or the experiences of disabled athletes. Today, we’ve selected three favorite TED talks on disability:

Alice Dreger, „Is anatomy destiny?“
Dreger is well known for her groundbreaking studies on conjoined twins and intersex. In this talk, she suggests that unusual bodies can teach us something about democracy.



Maysoon Zayid, „I got 99 problems… palsy is just one“
Zayid talks about being at the intersection between racism, sexism, ableism… and comedy!



Mads Ananda Lodahl, „Ending the straight world order“
This talk isn’t about disability at all, but Lodahl talks about how queer studies question the concept of normal, and what the consequences of enforcing normalcy are.
Link to X-Talk


Most TED talks have subtitles and transcripts in several languages and the option to comment and discuss online. Enjoy, and tell us about your favorite TED talks!

Recommended Citation
Ylva Söderfeldt (2016): Favorite TED talks about disability. In: Public Disability History 1 (2016) 6.

Popular posts from this blog

Eating Dirt, Treating Slaves

-
Image
By  Rana Hogarth Historians of slavery must often contend with how the power imbalances of the slave system continue to shape the archival record, and, more importantly, influence the types of stories that get told. I certainly found this to be the case when writing my first book, Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 (University of North Carolina Press 2017). I felt overwhelmed as I weighed the written correspondence, published medical treatises, military records, and plantation records, medical lectures etc. by white physicians, military officers, colonial elites, and slave owners, against the dearth of written sources left behind by enslaved and free black people. Thus, it was a great challenge to construct a narrative using sources whose faithfulness in accounting for black people’s experiences in sickness and health were tenuous to say the least. Given the realities of the archives related to slavery, my approach to research became
Read more

The Portrait of a Sixteenth-Century Disabled Man

-
Image
By Volker Schönwiese Gazes at women and men with disabilities from the early modern times up until today – how can they be interpreted scientifically and artistically? A painting from an unknown disabled man from the 16th century that has not been taken notice of until then was the starting point of a participatory and transdisciplinary project in 2005/2006. The portrait is part of the “Kunst- und Wunderkammer” (Cabinet of Arts and Wonders, founded by Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, Region of the Tyrol [1529-1595]) at Ambras Castle near the city of Innsbruck/ Austria. The Institute of Educational Sciences at the University of Innsbruck, the Museum of Fine Arts (“Kunsthistorisches Museum”) in Vienna with its collection at Ambras Castle and the Centre for Independent Living in Innsbruck were the project partners of this research project. The project´s main goals were the creation and organisation of an exhibition at Ambras Castle and the publication of a scientific anthology with col
Read more

Jacques Chevillet (1786-1837), a rare emotional voice of a Napoleonic amputee

-
Image
By Bert Gevaert L’invalide (around 1823) by Nicolas Toussaint Charlet (Musée de l’Armée, Paris) Under Napoleon (1769-1821) the face of warfare changed dramatically: huge armies consisting of thousands of soldiers, equipped with firearms, were involved in massive battles resulting in more (deadly) casualties. While edged weapons, which were still the main weapon of the cavalry, caused ‘clean’ and easy to be treated wounds, the nature of gunshot wounds was completely different. Bullets penetrated the body and drove pieces of clothes inside the wound, this, usually in combination of severe fracture of bones, increased the risk of gangrene. More serious wounds were caused by artillery in the shape of iron balls, canister (small pieces of iron or balls) or explosive shells and grenades. This kind of ammunition caused such serious damage that entire limbs could be blown away or shredded to pieces. In the eyes of surgeons, only an immediate amputation could save the life of soldier
Read more