First Annual Elizabeth Dafoe Memorial Lecture (Manitoba)

First Annual Elizabeth Dafoe Memorial Lecture: From City Street to Library: Blind Readers in Victorian Britain by Dr. Vanessa Warne, Department of English Film and Theatre, University of Manitoba. "In the opening decades of the nineteenth century, the facts of blindness changed. People who could not see acquired both the ability and opportunity to read. This illustrated public talk explores three facets of the nineteenth-century history of blindness and of reading: the advent of raised print books for the blind, the public exhibition of finger reading by blind people on city streets, and the founding of libraries for blind users. Examining ideas, images and anecdotes related to blind people's entry into literacy and focused on the ways in which books, bodies and public spaces interact, it will consider ways in which the spread of blind literacy prompted not only a re-evaluation of the meaning of blindness but also a radical reconsideration of what it means to read." Dr. Warne will share some of the results of her research on the many changes that occured in the 19th century as the blind were enabled to read. - 1 October, 2009 - University of Manitoba