The Disability History Association and the University of Illinois Press are pleased to announce the winner of the inaugural 2023 Outstanding Dissertation in Disability History Prize!

Katherine Ranum

Hearing the Gospel in a Silent World: Faith, Disability, and Anomalous Bodies in the British Atlantic, 1680-1860

Katherine Ranum defended her dissertation with distinction in August 2022 and was awarded a PhD in history from the University of Cincinnati in December 2022.

The prize committee said, “Hearing the Gospel in a Silent World: Faith, Disability, and Anomalous Bodies in the British Atlantic, 1680-1860, is an engaging and beautifully written study of the historical intersections between religion and disability in the Anglo-Atlantic World. The editors loved the religious component and the expansive geographic scope of her work. Ranum discusses a variety of disabilities, including sensory, psychological, and physical, and how these body/minds were understood, treated, and experienced by different religious communities in Atlantic societies. We appreciated the ways in which she thoughtfully connected disability to intersecting histories of race and gender. Hearing the Gospel in a Silent World will make an important contribution to the Disability Histories Series, complementing the series other works in Atlantic World history and histories of enslavement.”

More information on the Disability History Prize here.