The relationship between disability and the Gothic, as Martha Stoddard Holmes rightly observes, has been undertheorized by scholars of the genre. This is surprising, given the intensity with which the Gothic has historically explored and exploited the prejudices associated with human difference as manifested in physiological and mental deviations from a perceived norm.
The proposed volume, which will be presented within the established International Gothic Series, published by Manchester University Press, will explore the uses and abuses of disability in Gothic fiction from the eighteenth century to the present, and will advance a genuinely international and multicultural analysis of this neglected aspect of Gothic stylistics. We particularly welcome papers that discuss Gothic textuality beyond the established European and American canon.
Issues which might be explored by contributors could include (but are not limited to):
- Abject bodies
- Human vivisection
- Amputation
- Leprosy
- Birth defects
- Mental illness
- Body Integrity
- Phantom limbs
- Body modification
- Pigmentation variations
- Branding and scarification
- Post-apocalyptic bodies
- Conjoined siblings
- Prostheses
- Corrective surgery
- Queer bodies
- Degeneration
- Ritual disfigurement
- Hermaphroditism
- Supernumerary limbs
- Hospital culture
- Zoomorphism
Proposals of approximately 500 words should be sent to the editors by 30 September 2013. The editors are: William Hughes (Department of English, Bath Spa University, UK) email w.hughes@bathspa.ac.uk and Andrew Smith (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, University of Sheffield, UK) email andrew.smith1@sheffield.ac.uk.
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If you are interested in this, you might also be interested in…
Call For Papers for Precarious Positions ~ Encounters with Normalcy – 4th Annual International Conference ***Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane*** 3rd + 4th September 2013 at Sheffield Hallam University can be found here.
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Disability Research Forum 