View Specification DocumentImpairment and Disability in the Ancient World CLASSIC5091
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: School of Humanities
- Credits: 20
- Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
- Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
- Available to Visiting Students: No
- Collaborative Online International Learning: No
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
This course explores the literary, documentary, archaeological, and bioarchaeological evidence for impairment and disability in the ancient world, and examines the lived experience of impaired and disabled individuals in the ancient world.
Timetable
10 x one-hour seminars and 10 x one-hour lectures across 10 weeks of one semester.
Requirements of Entry
Standard entry to Masters at College level.
Excluded Courses
CLASSIC4084 Impairment and Disability in the Ancient World
Co-requisites
None.
Assessment
The standard assessments for this course are:
■ One 2500 word essay - 60%.
■ One 1500 word object analysis - 40%.
If required, for instance where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, the following alternatives are available:
■ There is no alternative to the essays, but flexible deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustments (students should follow the usual process for extensions)
Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor.
Course Aims
This course aims to:
■ Provide students with the opportunity to become familiar with impairment and disability in the ancient world, an aspect of ancient culture and society that is often overlooked.
■ Engage closely with the different types of evidence for impairment and disability in the ancient world and evaluate their historical worth.
■ Engage closely with theoretical approaches to impairment and disability in other historical periods and the contemporary world and evaluate their appropriateness and relevance to the ancient world.
■ Critique the emerging sub-discipline of ancient disability studies.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
■ Identify cases of impairment and disability in the historical record.
■ Evaluate the ancient literary, documentary, archaeological, and bioarchaeological evidence for these examples.
■ Place these examples in their larger historical, cultural, and social context.
■ Formulate their own opinions regarding how these examples and the evidence for them have been received and repurposed from antiquity to the present, and argue them in a lucid and scholarly manner.
■ Appraise interdisciplinary scholarship from the disciplines of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, and Disciplinary Studies.