CHR Fellow Talk: Associate Professor Sun-Young Park (History and Art History), "Institutionalizing Rehabilitation: The Great War, Disabled Veterans, and Professional Reeducation in France"

Tuesday, February 27, 2024 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
Hybrid Event in Horizon Hall 6325 and on Zoom

Professor Park's project investigates the ways in which the French built environment between the Enlightenment and early twentieth century accommodated, and at times failed to accommodate, the disabled subject. During her CHR fellowship, she is focusing specifically on efforts to rehabilitate disabled veterans during and after the First World War. The scale of this conflict necessitated a shift from disposing to repairing and even recycling human bodies, and the French government focused on the re-education, training, and reintegration of disabled veterans through labor – at times against their wishes. She is analyzing the spatial and material dimensions of some of the earliest rehabilitation and professional reeducation centers, situating these institutional developments against early 20th-century veteran activism and charged debates about the nation’s responsibilities to those injured in war.