From Tiny Tim to Helen Keller, disabled people in the nineteenth century were portrayed in sentimental terms, as afflicted beings whose sufferings afforded ablebodied people opportunities to practice empathy and compassion. In all kinds of representations of disability, from popular fiction to the reports of institutions established for the education and rehabilitation of disabled people, the equation of disability and sentimentality served a variety of social functions, from ensuring the continued existence of a sympathetic sensibility in a hard-hearted, market-driven world, to asserting the selfhood and equality of disabled adults. Unique in its focus on blindness and its examination of the interplay between institutional discourse and popular literature, Woeful Afflictions offers a detailed historical analysis of the types of cultural work performed by sentimental representations of disability in public reports and lectures, exhibitions, novels, stories, poems, autobiographical writings, and popular media portrayals from the 1830s through the 1890s in the United States. Woeful Afflictions combines contemporary scholarship on sentimentalism with the most recent works on the cultural meanings of disability to argue that sentimentalism, with its emphasis on creating emotional identifications between texts and readers, both reinforces existing associations between disability and otherness and works to rewrite those associations in portraying disabled people, in their emotional capacities, as no different from the ablebodied. This book will interest anyone concerned with disability studies and the social construction of the body, with the history of education and of public institutional care in the United States, and with autobiographical writings.
The London 2012 Paralympic Games - the biggest, most accessible and best-attended games in the Paralympics' 64-year history - came with an explicit aim to "transform the perception of disabled people in society," and use sport to contribute to "a better world for all people with a disability." This social agenda offered the potential to re-frame disability; to symbolically challenge "ableist" ideology and to offer a reinvention of the (dis)abled body and a redefinition of the possible. This edited collection investigates what has and is happening in relation to these ambitions. The book is structured around three key questions: 1. What were the predominant mediated narratives surrounding the Paralympics, and what are the associated meanings attached to them? 2. How were the Paralympics experienced by media audiences (both disabled and non-disabled)? 3. To what extent did the 2012 Paralympics inspire social change? Each section of this book is interspersed with authentic "voices" from outside academia: broadcasters, athletes and disabled schoolchildren.
An authoritative and indispensable guide to disability and media, this thoughtfully curated collection features varied and provocative contributions from distinguished scholars globally, alongside next-generation research leaders. Disability and media has emerged as a dynamic and exciting area of contemporary culture and social life. Media–– especially digital technology––play a vital role in disability transformations, with widespread implications for global societies and how we understand communications. This book addresses this development, from representation and audience through technologies, innovations and challenges of the field. Through the varied and global perspectives of leading researchers, writers, and practitioners, including many authors with lived experience of disability, it covers a wide range of traditional, emergent and future media forms and formats. International in scope and orientation, The Routledge Companion to Disability and Media offers students and scholars alike a comprehensive survey of the intersections between disability studies and media studies This book is available as an accessible eBook. For more information, please visit https://taylorandfrancis.com/about/corporate-responsibility/accessibility-at-taylor-francis/.
This book provides an extensive overview and analysis of current work on semiotics that is being pursued globally in the areas of literature, the visual arts, cultural studies, media, the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Semiotics—also known as structuralism—is one of the major theoretical movements of the 20th century and its influence as a way to conduct analyses of cultural products and human practices has been immense. This is a comprehensive volume that brings together many otherwise fragmented academic disciplines and currents, uniting them in the framework of semiotics. Addressing a longstanding need, it provides a global perspective on recent and ongoing semiotic research across a broad range of disciplines. The handbook is intended for all researchers interested in applying semiotics as a critical lens for inquiry across diverse disciplines.
Presents current knowledge of and experience with disability across a wide variety of places, conditions, and cultures to both the general reader and the specialist.
The act of life is a lived experience, common and unique, that ties each of us to every other lived experience. The fact of disability does not alter this fundamental truth. In this edition of Rethinking Disability: World Perspectives in Culture and Society, we are presented with a system of thinking that considers the values of disability, as a resource, as a creative source of culture that moves disability out of the realm of victimized people and insurmountable barriers, and provides opportunities to use the experience of disability to enter into networks that recognize strengths of differing abilities. The authors within will intrigue you, will move you, will charm you, but always will challenge your notion of sameness and difference as they confront the construct and (de)construct of disability and ableism. They present compelling arguments for viewing disABILITY through the multiple lenses of disability culture. They explore themes and issues that transcend past and origins, time and place, nuances of genetics, to experiences of present and becoming, and towards the future and beyond mere human, yet always intrinsically connected to being human. This book is intended for all audiences who dare to confront difference and sameness within themselves and in connection with others; to inspire researchers who wish to explore, and examine disability across social, cultural and economic barriers. It is an invitation to push away the barriers, bring ableism inside to a place where the prosthesis is no longer the elephant in the room.
This introduction to disability studies represents a clear, engaging and consistently thought-provoking study of the field. The book discusses the global nature of disability studies and disability politics, introduces key debates in the field and represents the intersections of disability studies with feminist, class, queer and postcolonial analyses. The book has a clear and coherent format which matches the interdisciplinary framework of disability studies - including chapters on sociology, critical psychology, discourse analysis, psychoanalysis and education. Sitting alongside discussions on the global and glocal significance of disability studies these chapters include: Society: Sociological disability studies Individuals: De-psychologising disability studies Psychology: Critical psychological disability studies Culture: Psychoanalytic disability studies Education: Inclusive disability studies Each chapter engages with important areas of analysis such as the individual, society, community and education to explore the realities of oppression experienced by disabled people and to develop the possibilities for addressing it. Broad, dynamic and interdisciplinary in scope this book will be crucial reading for students, researchers and practitioners alike.
This first-of-its kind volume spans the breadth of disability research and practice specifically focusing on the global South. Established and emerging scholars alongside advocates adopt a critical and interdisciplinary stance to probe, challenge and shift common held social understandings of disability in established discourses, epistemologies and practices, including those in prominent areas such as global health, disability studies and international development. Motivated by decolonizing approaches, contributors carefully weave the lived and embodied experiences of disabled people, families and communities through contextual, cultural, spatial, racial, economic, identity and geopolitical complexities and heterogeneities. Dispatches from Ghana, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Venezuela among many others spotlight the complex uncertainties of modern geopolitics of coloniality; emergent forms of governance including neoliberal globalization, war and conflicts; the interstices of gender, race, ethnicity, space and religion; structural barriers to redistribution and realization of rights; and processes of disability representation. This handbook examines in rigorous depth, established practices and discourses in disability including those on development, rights, policies and practices, opening a space for critical debate on hegemonic and often unquestioned terrains. Highlights of the coverage include: Critical issues in conceptualizing disability across cultures, time and space The challenges of disability models, metrics and statistics Disability, poverty and livelihoods in urban and rural contexts Disability interstices with migration, race, ethnicity, ge nder and sexuality Disabilit y, religion and customary societies and practice · The UNCRPD, disability rights orientations and instrumentalitie · Redistributive systems including budgeting, cash transfer systems and programming. · Global South–North partnerships: intercultural methodologies in disability research. This much awaited handbook provides students, academics, practitioners and policymakers with an authoritative framework for critical thinking and debate about disability, while pushing theoretical and practical frontiers in unprecedented ways.