Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of RepresentationFocusing primarily on the work of Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and J. M. Coetzee, Ato Quayson launches a thoroughly cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study of the representation of physical disability. Quayson suggests that the subliminal unease and moral panic invoked by the disabled is refracted within the structures of literature and literary discourse itself, a crisis he terms "aesthetic nervousness." The disabled reminds the able-bodied that the body is provisional and temporary and that normality is wrapped up in certain social frameworks. Quayson expands his argument by turning to Greek and Yoruba writings, African American and postcolonial literature, depictions of deformed characters in early modern England and the plays of Shakespeare, and children's films, among other texts. He considers how disability affects interpersonal relationships and forces the character and the reader to take an ethical standpoint, much like representations of violence, pain, and the sacred. The disabled are also used to represent social suffering, inadvertently obscuring their true hardships. |
Contents
Representation | 32 |
Disability | 54 |
Disability Ambiguity | 86 |
Copyright | |
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action aesthetic nervousness apartheid assimilated autistic spectrum Autshumato Baby Suggs Beckett Bero Blindman body chapter Clov Clov's Coetzee Coetzee's colonial Consolata context cultural define dialogism disability representation disabled characters discourse discussion disease domain Dutch Elizabeth Costello Endgame epiphanies ethical foreground Franz Jacobs Hamm Hamm's hermeneutical Ifada impairments implied interlocutor insight interpretation J. M. Coetzee Khoikhoi Krotoa lepers leprosy literary text literary-aesthetic literature Madmen and Specialists means mendicants metaphor Michael K Michael K's mind Molloy Molloy's moral mother Nagg narrative narrator nondisabled noted notion novel pain persons with disability perspective pertinent pharmakos physical play political question reading references relation relationship representation of disability Riebeeck ritual Robben Island role sacrificial carrier sense settlers sexuality Sha sha significant silence social Soyinka status story structure suggest Sunma systemic uncanny things tion Toni Morrison various Waiting for Godot words writing