David Bolt – författare

Although the theme of blindness occurs frequently in literature, literary criticism has rarely engaged the experiential knowledge of people with visual impairments. The Metanarrative of Blindness counters this trend by bringing to readings of twentieth-century works in English a perspective appreciative of impairment and disability. Author David Bolt examines representations of blindness in more than forty literary works, including writing by Kipling, Joyce, Synge, Orwell, H. G. Wells, Susan Sontag, and Stephen King, shedding light on the deficiencies of these representations and sometimes revealing an uncomfortable resonance with the Anglo-American science of eugenics.

What connects these seemingly disparate works is what Bolt calls “the metanarrative of blindness,” a narrative steeped in mythology and with deep roots in Western culture. Bolt examines literary representations of blindness using the analytical tools of disability studies in both the humanities and social sciences. His readings are also broadly appreciative of personal, social, and cultural aspects of disability, with the aim of bringing literary scholars to the growing discipline of disability studies, and vice versa. This interdisciplinary monograph is relevant to people working in literary studies, disability studies, psychology, sociology, applied linguistics, life writing, and cultural studies, as well as those with a general interest in education and representations of blindness.

This book explores multiple metanarratives of disability to introduce and investigate the critical concept of assumed authority and the normative social order from which it derives.

The book comprises 15 chapters developed across three parts and, informed by disability studies, is authored by those with research interests in the condition on which they focus as well as direct or intimate experiential knowledge. When out and about, many disabled people know only too well what it is to be erroneously told the error of our/their ways by non-disabled passers-by, assumed authority often cloaked in helpfulness. Showing that assumed authority is underpinned by a displacement of personal narratives in favour of overarching metanarratives of disability that find currency in a diverse multiplicity of cultural representations – ranging from literature to film, television, advertising, social media, comics, art, and music – this work discusses how this relates to a range of disabilities and chronic conditions, including blindness, autism, Down syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and HIV and AIDS.

Metanarratives of Disability will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, medical sociology, medical humanities, education studies, cultural studies, and health.

''offers a well-structured, accessible collection of disability narratives that foreground disabled voices'' Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 16.1 (2022)

This book explores multiple metanarratives of disability to introduce and investigate the critical concept of assumed authority and the normative social order from which it derives.

The book comprises 15 chapters developed across three parts and, informed by disability studies, is authored by those with research interests in the condition on which they focus as well as direct or intimate experiential knowledge. When out and about, many disabled people know only too well what it is to be erroneously told the error of our/their ways by non-disabled passers-by, assumed authority often cloaked in helpfulness. Showing that assumed authority is underpinned by a displacement of personal narratives in favour of overarching metanarratives of disability that find currency in a diverse multiplicity of cultural representations – ranging from literature to film, television, advertising, social media, comics, art, and music – this work discusses how this relates to a range of disabilities and chronic conditions, including blindness, autism, Down syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and HIV and AIDS.

Metanarratives of Disability will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, medical sociology, medical humanities, education studies, cultural studies, and health.

''offers a well-structured, accessible collection of disability narratives that foreground disabled voices'' Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 16.1 (2022)

This edited volume explores blindness as a construct with which we the contributors engage as part of our social existence and/or academic research. Irrespective of eye conditions, or the lack thereof, blindness is an understanding at which we have all come to arrive. On the way to this conceptual point, which is in any case unlikely ever to be fixed, we have passed or visited many formative cultural stations.In the terms of autocritical disability studies (i.e. an explicitly embodied development of critical disability studies), these cultural stations include key moments in education and training; the reflective pursuits of philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural theory; literary works such as autobiography, novels, short stories, drama, and poetry; visual texts ranging from photography to postage stamps; technological developments like television, computer applications, and social media; value systems defined by family and/or religion; and the social phenomenon of hate and war. Each chapter in this volume engages with two of these cultural stations; some ostensibly if not profoundly positive or indeed negative and some that contradict each other within and across chapters.This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, education, and health.

This edited volume explores blindness as a construct with which we the contributors engage as part of our social existence and/or academic research. Irrespective of eye conditions, or the lack thereof, blindness is an understanding at which we have all come to arrive. On the way to this conceptual point, which is in any case unlikely ever to be fixed, we have passed or visited many formative cultural stations.In the terms of autocritical disability studies (i.e. an explicitly embodied development of critical disability studies), these cultural stations include key moments in education and training; the reflective pursuits of philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural theory; literary works such as autobiography, novels, short stories, drama, and poetry; visual texts ranging from photography to postage stamps; technological developments like television, computer applications, and social media; value systems defined by family and/or religion; and the social phenomenon of hate and war. Each chapter in this volume engages with two of these cultural stations; some ostensibly if not profoundly positive or indeed negative and some that contradict each other within and across chapters.This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, education, and health.

Disability is history and futurity, culture and society, practice and theory, work and play, an immense desire for life by which body and mind are dragged kicking and screaming into each and every new day.

Using autocritical discourse analysis, a new hybrid research method that combines aspects of the established methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and autoethnography, this book explores the formative cultural identity politics of disability via cultural stations of UK popular culture. These cultural stations include action figures, children’s books, television miniseries, comics, comedy films, teenage drama and sitcoms, the punk rock movement, and alternative comedy. Although the cultural stations range from toys and comics to aggressive music and chaotic sitcoms, all are considered with a focus on the language and tropes of disability. Indeed, most of the works are not remembered as portrayals of disability but the book’s analysis reveals flash if not fleeting representations that, when centralised, clarify patterns of duplicity. Via the language of power, and the power of language, all these texts are found to have contributed to the formative cultural identity politics of disability.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, toy studies, comic studies, humour studies, television studies, popular music studies, gender studies, literary studies, and cultural studies.

Disability is history and futurity, culture and society, practice and theory, work and play, an immense desire for life by which body and mind are dragged kicking and screaming into each and every new day.

Using autocritical discourse analysis, a new hybrid research method that combines aspects of the established methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and autoethnography, this book explores the formative cultural identity politics of disability via cultural stations of UK popular culture. These cultural stations include action figures, children’s books, television miniseries, comics, comedy films, teenage drama and sitcoms, the punk rock movement, and alternative comedy. Although the cultural stations range from toys and comics to aggressive music and chaotic sitcoms, all are considered with a focus on the language and tropes of disability. Indeed, most of the works are not remembered as portrayals of disability but the book’s analysis reveals flash if not fleeting representations that, when centralised, clarify patterns of duplicity. Via the language of power, and the power of language, all these texts are found to have contributed to the formative cultural identity politics of disability.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, toy studies, comic studies, humour studies, television studies, popular music studies, gender studies, literary studies, and cultural studies.