Overview

Imagine a world without sight. Is it dark and gloomy? Is it terrifying and isolating? Or is it simply a state of not seeing, which we have demonised and sentimentalized over the centuries? And why is blindness so frightening? In this fascinating historical adventure, Broadcaster and author Selina Mills takes us on a journey through the history of blindness in Western Culture to discover that blindness is not so dark after all. Inspired by her own experience of losing her sight as she forged a successful journalistic career, Life Unseen takes us through a personal and unsentimental historical quest through the lives, stories and achievements of blind people - as well as those sighted people who sought to patronize, demonize and fix them. From the blind poet Homer, through the myths and moralising of early medieval culture to the scientific and medical discoveries of the Enlightenment and modern times, the story of blindness turns out to be a story of our whole culture.

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9781848856905

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Reviews

Selina Mills crafts a compelling narrative that illuminates and animates the story of a community that has always existed but has been relegated to the margins and the shadows. Mills takes readers along on her personal journey as she comes to terms with her own blindness with candor and warmth. She shares her fears, her irritation, her rage, and yes, her joy, as her contemporary story resonates with the lives of famous and lesser known blind writers, musicians, inventors and leaders from the past and present. This book will help to reform the image of blindness from a tragedy that must be overcome to simply another facet of human diversity. * Georgina Kleege, University of California, Berkely, USA *

Selina Mills crafts a compelling narrative that illuminates and animates the story of a community that has always existed but has been relegated to the margins and the shadows. Mills takes readers along on her personal journey as she comes to terms with her own blindness with candor and warmth. She shares her fears, her irritation, her rage, and yes, her joy, as her contemporary story resonates with the lives of famous and lesser known blind writers, musicians, inventors and leaders from the past and present. This book will help to reform the image of blindness from a tragedy that must be overcome to simply another facet of human diversity. * Georgina Kleege, University of California, Berkely, USA * What is it like to be blind-or nearly blind? In this enchanting, quirky memoir, Selina Mills leads us through her life among the curious, pitying, and well-wishing sighted. Anecdotes from myth, religion, literature, and medicine reveal the blind as devil, prophet, victim, genius, exhibit, disabled-and clown. The book's cheerful revelation is that the blind are 'ordinary', that darkness is not all dark. * Janet Todd * The metanarrative of blindness hangs over us all, invites us to identify as sighted or blind, and thus to follow numerous binary assumptions that pertain to everything from sexuality to epistemology. Life Unseen helps to disrupt the myths, tropes, and stereotypes of the metanarrative via the often under-rated power of memoire. As such, the book makes an important contribution to blindness studies. * David Bolt, Professor of Disability Studies and Interdisciplinarity at Liverpool Hope University * This is a wonderfully refreshing account of blindness. With a winning mix of wit and erudition, Mills cuts through the stereotypes and cliches of blindness to give us a funny, touching and memorable account of her quest to understand why blindness gets such a bad press. Part history, part memoir, Mills's writing takes us through an alternative history of blindness whilst reflecting with honesty and beauty on her personal journey into sight loss. A significant contribution to the field of critical blindness studies. * Hannah Thompson, Royal Holloway University of London, UK *

Author Information

Selina Mills is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who is legally blind. Educated in the USA and the UK, Selina has worked as a senior reporter and broadcaster for Reuters, The Daily Telegraph, and the BBC.

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