July 5 – The Mis-Measure of Man

Dr. Brian Donovan teaches US History and Disability Studies at Kirkwood Community College, Coe College, and the University of Iowa. Today and tomorrow he will be giving us two lectures on “The Mis-Measure of Man: The History of Disability from the Middle Ages to the Present.” The first conference is “Like Clockwork: From Medieval to Early Modern Ideas About the Body (1100-1700).” The second conference is “Shell Shock: The Limits of the Mechanical Body (1800-Present).” The conferences will cover the historical evolution of our understanding of the body from physical, philosophical, spiritual, and communal perspectives.

Dr. Donovan earned a Master’s Degree in History from Yale University and a PhD in History from the University of Iowa. He is currently revising his dissertation, The Harder Heroism of the Hospital: Union Army Veterans and the Creation of Disability, 1862-1910, for publication. His most recent publication is “Like Monkeys at the Zoo: Politics and the Performance of Disability at the Iowa Soldiers’ Home, 1887-1910”, which received an honorable mention for the Mildred Throne/Charles Aldrich Award for “the most significant article on Iowa history in a professional history journal in the previous calendar year,” presented by Governor Terry Branstad in 2013.

 

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation
After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.