Monstrosity, Disability, and the Posthuman in the Medieval and Early Modern World
Author | : Richard H. Godden |
Publisher | : Springer Nature |
Total Pages | : 364 |
Release | : 2019-11-21 |
ISBN-10 | : 9783030254582 |
ISBN-13 | : 3030254585 |
Rating | : 4/5 (82 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: This collection examines the intersection of the discourses of “disability” and “monstrosity” in a timely and necessary intervention in the scholarly fields of Disability Studies and Monster Studies. Analyzing Medieval and Early Modern art and literature replete with images of non-normative bodies, these essays consider the pernicious history of defining people with distinctly non-normative bodies or non-normative cognition as monsters. In many cases throughout Western history, a figure marked by what Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has termed “the extraordinary body” is labeled a “monster.” This volume explores the origins of this conflation, examines the problems and possibilities inherent in it, and casts both disability and monstrosity in light of emergent, empowering discourses of posthumanism.