Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability

Alice Hall teaches in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UK. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has previously worked at the University of Nottingham and the University of Paris (III and VII). Alice is the author of Disability and Modern Fiction: Faulkner, Morrison, Coetzee and the Nobel Prize for Literature (2012) and Literature and Disability: Contemporary Critical Thought (2015).

Titles in the "Routledge Companions" series introduce scholarly perspectives on particular subjects. The present volume surveys scholarship written at the intersection of literary studies, disability studies, and related fields. In her introduction, Hall (English, Univ. of York, UK) proposes that "literary and theoretical writing about disability provides ... a means of examining the narratives [that] shape and [give] meaning" to life. Hall presents the essays in five parts. Prioritizing areas "traditionally under-researched in disability studies," part 1 includes essays that break new ground or reconfigure existing critical modes. For example, Siobhan Senier argues that disability among indigenous peoples "cannot be thought apart from tribal sovereignty and land claims.” In another essay, Cameron Awkward-Rich conducts a close reading of the terms disability and transgender, bringing into focus the “uneven” relationship between them and their associated disciplines. The rest of the 30 essays are arranged by genre (novels and short stories, poetry, drama, life writing). Standouts include Rebecca Sanchez's "Deafness and Modernism" and Samuel Yates's "Disability and the American Stage Musical" (these titles evince the companion's wide-sweeping scope). Whether used as a textbook, secondary resource, or general reading, this vital companion offers myriad entry points into a dynamic, evolving field of study.J. D. Harding, Saint Leo University, USA. Choice: Highly Recommended."This anthology offers an introduction to the developing canon of disability literature (we are introduced to many works in the genres of fiction, poetry, drama, life writing, and graphic narratives) and a diversity of literary criticism (scholars in this collection employ critical disability studies, trans studies, gothic studies, modernism, feminism, afro-modernism, gender, race, nationality, class, ethnicity—the critical approaches are varied and demonstrate, in my opinion, how intersectional and interdisciplinary conversations of disability literature can be). Scholars reading this anthology are given an excellent overview of current conversations in the field and invitations to join in research and discussion... The Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability is an engaging companion to excellent works in disability literature, and I hope it sparks many new conversations and insights."Liz Whiteacre, The University of Indianapolis, USA, Wordgathering

• Introduction to The Routledge Companion to Literature and DisabilityAlice HallPart I: New Directions in the Field Disability in Indigenous Literature Siobhan Senier Disability in Black Speculative FictionSami Schalk t4t: Towards a Crip Ethics of Trans Literary CriticismCameron Awkward-Rich Challenging Photocentrism: Writing Signs and Bilingual Deaf LiteraturesKristen Harmon "Here There Be Monsters": Mapping Novel Representations of the Relationship between Disability and Monstrosity in Recent Graphic Narratives and Comic BooksChris Foss Spectrality, Strangeness, and Stigmaphilia: Gothic and Critical Disability StudiesSara Wasson Contemporary Horror and Disability: Adaptations and Active ReadersPetra Kuppers Part II: Novels and Short Stories From "Changelings" to "Libtards": Intellectual Disability in the Eighteenth Century and BeyondD. Christopher Gabbard Crip Gothic: Affiliations of Disability and Queerness in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764)Jason S. Farr "Of wonderful use to everyone": Disability and the Marriage Plot in the Nineteenth-Century NovelClare Walker Gore Afro-modernism and Black Disability StudiesJess Waggoner "What’s the Matter with Him?": Intellectual Disability, Jewishness, and Stereotype in Bernard Malamud’s "Idiots First"Howard Sklar Metaphorical Medicine: Disability in Anglophone Indian FictionStephanie Yorke Disability and Contemporary Literature: Antinormative Narratives of Embodiment David T. Mitchell Part III: Poetry Poet and Beggar: Edmund White’s Blindness Vanessa Warne Deafness and ModernismRebecca Sanchez The "Fury of Loving Joyfully": Amelia Rosselli’s War Variations Elizabeth Leake Getting There: Pain Poetics and Canadian LiteratureShane Neilson Disability in Contemporary PoetryJohanna Emeney Disability Poetry: Testing the Waters of DefinitionMichael Northen Part IV: Drama Canadian Disability DramaturgiesKirsty Johnston Disability and the American Stage MusicalSamuel Yates Of Scapegoats and Men: Shane Meadow’s Dead Man’s Shoes and the Politics of Learning DisabilityAnna Harpin Disability, Drama, and the Problem of Intersectional InvisibilityAnn M. Fox Puppets, Players and the Poetics of Vulnerability: Hijinx’s Meet Fred and New Directions in the Theatres of Learning DisabilityMatt HargravePart V: Life Writing Sex, Death, and the Welfare Check: Rhythms of Disability and Sexuality in David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives Leon J. Hilton Disability Narrative, Embodied Aesthetics and Cross-Media ArtsStella Bolaki A Grammar of Touch: Interdependencies of Person, Place, ThingShannon Walters Psychographics: Graphic Memoirs and Psychiatric DisabilityElizabeth J. Donaldson Challenging the Neurotypical: Autism, Contemporary Literature, and Digital TextualitiesHannah Tweed