Pain Made Holy

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-150
Author(s):  
Joanne Woiak
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
Multiple Meanings

Through an examination of the experiences of Castillar Lupe dy Cazaril, protagonist of Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion, this chapter argues that the novel mirrors academic and advocacy agendas on the topics of passing, sexuality, and care, while ultimately relating to emerging perspectives from queer disability studies critiques of normalcy. The chapter engages with The Curse of Chalion as a text that illustrates and contributes to theoretical and activist work on disability in relation to vulnerability and cure, through the multiple meanings of Cazaril’s ‘holy pain’. The chapter shows how, in its overarching concern with embodiment through Cazaril’s physical suffering, fatigue, chronic illness, and rehabilitation, Bujold’s speculative narrative aligns with recent disability studies and disability justice frameworks that hold space for multiple, nuanced perspectives on these issues, inviting examination of the connections between the bodily and social dimensions of disability.

scholarly journals Pragmatic Failures Experienced by Jacob in Jodi Picoult’s Novel House Rules

Lexicon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riza Suryandari ◽  
Adi Sutrisno
Keyword(s):  
Asperger Syndrome ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Frequent Type ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Maxim Of Quality

Pragmatic failures are often discussed in the context of cross-cultural studies. However, pragmatic failures have also been evident in other circumstances. People who are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, for example, also often experience pragmatic failures, even when they converse with others who come from the same geographical area and share the same culture. This paper examines pragmatic failures produced by Jacob, a character diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (AS) in Jodi Picoult’s novel House Rules. The data were excerpts taken from the novel that show Jacob’s failures to understand the other speakers. The data were classified into 12 categories of pragmatic failures: sarcasm, idioms, common phrases, metaphors, hyperbole, words with multiple meanings, the maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relation, maxim of manner, joke, and indirect speech acts. The results showed that the most frequent type of pragmatic failures that Jacob produces in the novel is the infringement of the maxim of relation. In other words, Jacob often produces irrelevant utterances.

Old Lives

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-88
Author(s):  
Maren Tova Linett
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
New World ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Old People ◽  
World State ◽  
The World ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Age Reading

Chapter 2 takes a disability studies approach to aging by viewing Brave New World (1932) as a thought experiment that explores the value of old age. Reading the novel alongside Ezekiel Emanuel’s claim that it would be best for everyone to die at around age seventy-five, before their abilities begin to decline, the chapter reads the absence of old people in the World State as an aspect of its dystopia. The chapter first argues that the persistent youth embraced by the society robs life of its narrative arc and thereby of an important aspect of its meaning. It then explores the reasons suggested by the novel that such a sacrifice of life narratives is not worthwhile, even to avoid periods of possible disability or frailty. Brave New World makes clear that the excision of old age has significant political, moral, and emotional costs.

scholarly journals (Dis)abling practices and theories?: exploring chronic illness in disability studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist ◽  
Hisayo Katsui ◽  
Janice McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Disability Studies

scholarly journals “Like Bananas with Brown Spots”

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-194
Author(s):  
Aparna Nair
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
Building Resilience ◽  
The Family ◽  
Indian Childhood ◽  
Building Community

Employing an analytical autoethnographic methodology, this paper examines how the polysemic meanings and punctuated character of epilepsy produces social and corporeal vulnerabilities in an Indian childhood. The paper further establishes the importance of the family in influencing individual perceptions and constructions of chronic illness as well as in building resilience or increasing vulnerabilities. In examining the process of research, this paper also makes an argument that disabled researchers in the field can become vulnerable in multivalent ways but also argues that the act of disclosure of epileptic/disabled identities during the research process can become central to building community and resilience. This paper also complicates the often North-centric narrative of disability studies and underlines the importance of social contexts around individual categories of disability or chronic illness.

scholarly journals Un/covering: Making Disability Identity Legible

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Dawn Evans
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Disability Identity ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
Disability Stigma ◽  
Invisible Disabilities

This article examines one aspect of disability identity among people with non-apparent or "invisible" disabilities: the decision to emphasize, remind others about, or openly acknowledge impairment in social settings. I call this process "un/covering," and situate this concept in the sociological and Disability Studies literature on disability stigma, passing, and covering. Drawing on interviews with people who have acquired a non-apparent impairment through chronic illness or injury, I argue that decisions to un/cover (after a disability disclosure has already been made) play a pivotal role for this group in developing a strong, positive disability identity and making that identity legible to others. Decisions to pass, cover, or un/cover are ongoing decisions that stitch together the fabric of each person's daily life experiences, thus serving as primary mechanisms for identity negotiation and management.

scholarly journals ‘Of Pride and Joy No Common Rate’: From the Surplus Women Problem to Surplus Jouissance in Margaret Oliphant’s Hester

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Moore
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Central Character ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
Pleasure Principle ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Surplus Labour ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Surplus Women ◽  
Condition Of Women

Abstract This article analyses Margaret Oliphant’s novel Hester (1883), arguing that it dramatizes a complex interplay of surplus labour, surplus capital, the figure of the surplus woman, and surplus jouissance. The central character, Hester, is read as a figure who embodies the surplus jouissance which is both necessary to and disruptive of modern capitalism, and which in the novel stands in opposition to the steady state of the respectable country bank, taken here to align with the Freudian pleasure principle. In support of this reading, the article traces a line from Hester back to the ‘surplus women debate’ of the 1850s and 60s, including Oliphant’s contribution to this debate in her 1858 article ‘The Condition of Women’. The novel itself is analysed through its epigraph, taken from a Charles Lamb poem of 1803, and through the multiple meanings of the concept of ‘chance’ which the text presents. My analysis proceeds by way of Freud, J. S. Mill, Marx and Lacan, finding that Lacan’s rereading of surplus labour as surplus jouissance ultimately provides the most productive way to read the text’s rearticulation of the surplus women problem.

Perspectives of a Differently Abled Man: A Peep into VaibhavKolhe’s

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 338-341
Author(s):  
D. Sindhuja
Keyword(s):  
Disability Studies ◽  
Physical Disability ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Disability

Disability studies provoke a clear and consistently thought provoking portrayal of differently abled people. Nowadays, people with disability face many problems in their day-to-day life. All people have their own dreams to achieve something special in this world. Likewise, the people with disabilities also have some dreams. The novel,The Incomplete by VaibhavKolhe deals with the difficulties and the challenges undergone by the protagonist in his life. The protagonist narrates several incidents from his childhood to his adolescence. He faces a lot of struggles in his life because of his physical disability. Even in his love, he fails because of expressing his inner emotions. This novel mainly depicts the fact that how the protagonist accepts his disability as a challenge and how he overcomes his weakness. The present paper focuses on the sufferings and reactions of a differently abled man and how he adapts to the environment and the people in the substandard society.

scholarly journals Autisme als meerduidig en politiek fenomeen: een disability studies perspectief

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leni Van Goidsenhoven ◽  
Gert-Jan Vanaken
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Clinical Perspective ◽  
Research Context ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Epistemic Humility ◽  
Objective Sense ◽  
Relational Concepts ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Political Understanding

In clinical practice and research, we often explain what autism is by using several definite and seemingly neutral sentences. However, can we know what autism is in a truly objective sense? Is it moreover justified to put forward persistently the medical-clinical perspective as an explanation? To answer these questions, we first look at the interdisciplinary field of Disability Studies, paying special attention to the concept of neurodiversity. Drawing on that field and its insights, we do not only unravel the multiple meanings of autism, but we also make an argument for an urgent understanding of autism as an ambiguous and political phenomenon. This understanding implies thinking autism in contextual and relational concepts and recognizing the mutability of the phenomenon. Furthermore, by drawing on concrete examples, we demonstrate why an ambiguous and political understanding of autism is urgent, both in individual trajectories as in thinking about early autism detection and intervention. Finally, we conclude our article by arguing for an attitude of epistemic humility. We also offer some suggestions on how to implement ambiguity and political understanding of autism in a clinical and research context.

scholarly journals Het geheimzinnige spijkerschrift van de doofstomme analfabete dichter: het beeld van mindervaliditeit in Kader Abdolahs proza

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 75-88
Author(s):  
Ewa Dynarowicz
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Literary Representations ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Way

When commenting on his literary work, Kader Abdolah regularly links it to his biography, his novels and short stories becoming an important part of his self-representation as a writer. One of the prominent motives in this self-representation is the story of his deaf father, which appears repeatedly in interviews as well as in his literary work, the most significant example being the novel Spijkerschrift [Cuneiform, 2000]. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the deaf father is being portrayed here and what implications this image has for the way Abdolah presents himself to his readership. The analysis is anchored in the theoretical framework provided by disability studies, focusing on literary representations of disability.  

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