Being the Freak: Teaching as a Blind Man, Nicholas Saunderson & Yours Truly

When students enroll in Professor Mounsey’s classes, are they drawn by the subject matter, or in part by curiosity about “seeing” the blind professor perform? Navigating by way of eighteenth-century mathematician and blind man, Nicolas Saunderson, Mounsey will help us to think about how blindness has been understood but also experienced, from the curiosity of the sighted about what the blind could know and ideas about sensory compensation to the variable but shared experiences of blindness across time.

Chris Mounsey is Professor of English literature and a scholar of eighteenth-century studies with particular interests in the histories of sexualities and disabilities. An award-winning teacher and widely-published scholar, he wrote and directed plays in his pre-academic life before his visual impairment was discovered. He founded and organized the “VariAbilities” academic conference to explore “variability” as a more expansive conception that includes disability, but also the wide range of variable embodiment and personhood. He is co-editor of the “Peculiar Bodies: Stories and Histories” series with University of Virginia Press.

This event is made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

Host or Publisher New College: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant