Monstrosity, Disability, and the Posthuman in the Medieval and Early Modern World

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.

Auteur

Richard H. Godden is Assistant Professor of English at Louisiana State University, USA, where he works on the representations of disability in medieval literature and culture.

Asa Simon Mittman is Professor of Art and Art History at California State University, Chico, USA, and author of several books and articles on monsters and marginality.

Texte du rabat

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.

Contenu
Preface: De/Coupling Monstrosity and DisabilityTory V. Pearman, Miami UniversityIntroduction1.Embodied Difference: Monstrosity and Disability, and the PosthumanAsa Simon Mittman + Richard H. Godden, California State University, Chico, & Tulane University
Discourses of Bodily Difference2.From Monstrosity to Abnormality: Montaigne, Canguilhem, FoucaultKathleen Perry Long, Cornell University 3.If in Other Respects He Appears to be Effectively Human: Defining Monstrosity in Medieval English LawEliza Buhrer, Colorado School of Mines4.(Dis)functional Faces: Signs of the Monstrous?Emily Cock + Patricia Skinner, University of Winchester5.Grendel and Goliath: Monstrous Superability and Disability in the Old English CorpusKaren Bruce Wallace, The Ohio State University6.E(race)ing the Future: Imagined Medieval Reproductive Possibilities and the Monstrosity of PowerShyama Rajendran, The George Washington University
Dis/Identifying the Other7.'Blob Child' Revisited: Conflations of Monstrosity, Disability, and Race in King of TarsMolly Lewis, The George Washington University8.Attending to Beasts Irrational in Gower's Visio AnglieHaylie Swenson, George Washington University9.How a Monster Means: The Significance of Bodily Difference in the Christopher Cynocephalus TraditionSpencer Weinreich, University of Oxford10.Lycanthropy and Lunacy: Cognitive Disability in The Duchess of MalfiSonya Freeman Loftis, Morehouse College11.Eschatology for Cannibals: A System of Aberrance in the Old English AndreasLeah Pope Parker, University of Wisconsin-Madison12.The Monstrous Womb of Early Modern Midwifery ManualsMelissa Hull Geil, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Queer Couplings 13.Blindness and Posthuman Sexuality in Paradise LostJohn S. Garrison, Carroll University14.Dwelling Underground in The Book of John Mandeville: Monstrosity, Disability, EcologyAlan S. Montroso, English, George Washington University
Coda 15.Muteness and Disembodied Difference: Three Case StudiesKarl Steel, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY