Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France

The History of Disability Series

by Therese-Adele Husson, Zina Weygand, Catherine Kudlick

In the 1820s, several years before Braille was invented, Therese-Adele Husson, a young blind woman from provincial France, wrote an audacious manifesto about her life, French society, and her hopes for the future. Through extensive research and scholarly detective work, authors Catherine Kudlick and Zina Weygand have rescued this intriguing woman and the remarkable story of her life and tragic death from obscurity, giving readers a rare look into a world recorded by an unlikely historical figure.
Reflections is one of the earliest recorded manifestations of group solidarity among people with the same disability, advocating self-sufficiency and independence on the part of blind people, encouraging education for all blind children, and exploring gender roles for both men and women. Resolutely defying the sense of "otherness" which pervades discourse about the disabled, Husson instead convinces us that that blindness offers a fresh and important perspective on both history and ourselves.
In rescuing this important historical account and recreating the life of an obscure but potent figure, Weygand and Kudlick have awakened a perspective that transcends time and which, ultimately, remaps our inherent ideas of physical sensibility

Genres: Disability, Nonfiction, History

144 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite professors wrote the analysis/autobiography for this book, and it was quite an interesting read! The first part was an essay a blind woman (teen, really) wrote in France in early 1800s. The second part was the analysis and story of that woman's life.