UB CDS co-hosts Prof. Beth Linker, University of Pennsylvania, "The Great War and Modern Veteran Care."

Beth Linker.

Beth Linker, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

Published November 9, 2017 This content is archived.

Thursday, November 09
12:15 - 1:30
Parker 214

*Light refreshments will be served

Popularly known as “The War to End All Wars,” the First World War was also the war to end all disability. Determined to curtail the human and economic costs of military conflict, the United States and many other belligerent nations instituted programs of physical and vocational rehabilitation in order to make injured men whole again, so that they could fit back into civilian society. This paper will trace the practice and ethic of the rehabilitative model of veteran care, with an eye toward showing how it later became commodified as part of America’s ongoing commitment to pursuing a militaristic foreign policy.

Linker received her Ph.D. from Yale and worked as a clinician before her doctoral training in history. Her research and teaching interests include the cultural and social history of modern medicine and science, specifically in critical disability studies, gender, body techniques, and surgery as a techno-curative practice. She is the author of two books, War’s Waste (Chicago, 2011) and Civil Disabilities (Penn Press, 2014).

This event is cosponsored by the UB Center for Disability Studies, the Humanities Institute Disability Studies Research Workshop, and Joining Forces-UB.