123231 AR Literature Course (interactive) (2018S)

The last decades have seen by an upsurge of autobiographical writing by disabled persons. This seminar will focus on British women’s disability and mental illness memoirs from the 21rst century. We will analyse narrative structures and investigate the ways in which the texts address and challenge stereotypes regarding disabled women, normative conceptions of health as well as manifestations of ableism and mentalism in medical discourse and in society as a whole (especially in popular and social media).
In the first part of the seminar, we will discuss the broader subject of disability as a new category in cultural and literary studies as well as disability autobiographies as a new genre. In the second part, we will analyse specific autobiographical texts written by disabled women with different disabilities and from different social backgrounds. We will concentrate on the ways in which the texts negotiate body images as well as experiences of shame and humiliation.