Foregrounding Disability Studies in Literature and Visual Arts

Description

This groundbreaking volume undertakes an in-depth exploration of literary and visual artworks through the disability studies lens, focusing on works often overlooked in this context. While recognizing existing scholarship, this anthology seeks to fill a crucial gap by presenting comprehensive, India-centred analyses of disability representations across diverse media. Through a rich tapestry of perspectives, the book challenges the notion of disability as a universal and static category, instead examining individual diversities and nuanced intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and class to reveal multifaceted experiences.

From canonical literature to contemporary visual art, the chapters trace the evolution of disability representations, confronting stereotypes while spotlighting narratives of agency and resilience. By probing the ways literature and art engage with the cultural constructs of disability, this volume exposes societal attitudes and advocates for a more inclusive interpretive approach of literary and visual works. The anthology also stands out for its diverse exploration of critical disability studies, encompassing both Western and Indian viewpoints, visual storytelling, and life narratives. Art has the capacity to dismantle biases, foster empathy, and advance a more equitable world. This work offers a powerful call for such change, challenging readers to reimagine how we view and understand disability.

About the Author

Prof. Anil K. Aneja is presently the Head, Department of English, University of Delhi and the Director, Centre for Disability Studies, University of Delhi. His areas of interest include Twentieth Century Fiction, Disability Studies, Human Rights Literature, Indian Writing in English, Translation Studies, Diaspora Studies and Communication and Technology Applications. An alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, he has to his credit more than a hundred conference presentations, many paper publications and a number of significant books. For nearly 30 years now, Prof. Aneja has been actively involved in the disability sector in various national and international roles. His achievements have earned him several distinctions and awards from various quarters. Among other awards, Prof. Aneja was conferred the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities by the then President of India in 2014 and the State Award in the Category ‘Best Individual Working in the field of Social Work’ by the Govt. of NCT of Delhi in 2019. In 2022, he was conferred with the prestigious 23rd NCPEDP - LTIMindtree Helen Keller Award in the category ‘Role Model Persons with Disabilities’.

Dr. Nidhi Vats is a prolific scholar with numerous publications including two books. An Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Delhi with over 12 years of teaching experience, her areas of expertise include Indian English Literature, Indian Mythology, Language Studies, Folklore Studies, and Disability Studies.

Table of contents

Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Acknowledgment

SECTION I CRITICAL DISABILITY STUDIES: DISCOURSE AND DIMENSIONS

1. Narrative Prosthesis Unveiled: On the 25th Anniversary of Narrative Prosthesis – David T. Mitchell
2. Empowering the Disabled: Embracing Digital Inclusion and Accessibility – Neerja Deswal
3. Physiognomy/Pathognomy: A Non-Linear Representation of Disability in Nineteenth-Century Police Fiction – Shreosi Biswas
4. Reclaiming the Disabled ‘Post-colonial’ Subject - Narratives of Oppression, Resistance and Transformative Praxis – Somya Tyagi

SECTION II DISABILITY INTERROGATIONS AND VOICES FROM THE WEST

6. Dystopias We Inhabit: The Disability Question in Literature and Life – Ratna Raman
7. Theatre of Disability and Contingency Awareness: Reading Deformed Language and Nervous Bodies in Samuel Beckett’s Plays – Asijit Datta
8. The Ordeal of Otherhood: Representation of the Disabled as ‘Other’ in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird and Toni Morrison’s Sula –Chandrani Biswas
9. Return to the ‘Imaginary’: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Disability in James Barrie’s Peter Pan – Jasmine Sharma

SECTION III DISABILITY REPRESENTATION AND THE INDIAN RESPONSE

9. Narrating Disabilities: Stories from Odisha – Raj Kumar
10. The Vandalism of Normalcy: Affect and the Representation of Disability in the Indian Short Story – Someshwar Sati
11. Rereading Age-Induced Frailty within the Formal Care Space of Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s Defying Winter – Priyanka Tripathi
12. Re-imagining Gendered Identities with Disabilities in Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie and Mahesh Dattani’s Tara – Shubha Dwivedi

SECTION IV VISUAL DIMENSIONS TO DISABILITY

13. When Pictures Speak: Seeing Epilepsy in Graphic Works–Epileptic and Mis(h)adra – Anil K. Aneja and Shilpa BSL
14. Satish Gujral and the Representational

Difficulties of Disability – Christel R. Devadawson

15. The Ambivalence of Normality in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange – Shubhayan Chakrabarti
16. Pathos of (Dis)abled Life: Female Caregivers in Hindi Cinema – Deeksha Suri

SECTION V  DISABILITY LIFE NARRATIVES

17. Changing Dynamics of Self-presentation in Disabled Women’s Autobiographies in India – Tejaswini Nandkumar Deo
18. ‘Enabling’ Representations of Disability in the Paintings of Frida Kahlo (1907–54) – Kamayani Kumar

19. Disability Representations & the Strategies of Adaptation: Reading Helen Keller in Text & Films – Aishwarya Jha
20. Home as a Cite of Resistance and Refuge in Select Disabled Women’s Autobiographical Writings – Jyothsnaphanija