行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫 成果報告
失能者的論述、敘事、與傳記 (III-II)
計畫類別： 個別型計畫
計畫編號： NSC92-2411-H-110-004-
執行期間： 92 年 08 月 01 日至 93 年 07 月 31 日
執行單位： 國立中山大學外國語文學系(所)
計畫主持人： 孫小玉
報告類型： 精簡報告
處理方式： 本計畫可公開查詢
中 華 民 國 93 年 10 月 12 日
行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫
■ 成 果 報 告
□期中進度報告
失能者的論述、敘事、與傳記(III-II)
計畫類別：■ 個別型計畫 □ 整合型計畫
計畫編號：NSC 92－ 2411 －H － 110 － 004 －
執行期間： 92 年 8 月 1 日至 93 年 7 月 31 日
計畫主持人：孫 小 玉
共同主持人：
計畫參與人員：
成果報告類型(依經費核定清單規定繳交)：■精簡報告 □完整報告
本成果報告包括以下應繳交之附件：
□赴國外出差或研習心得報告一份
□赴大陸地區出差或研習心得報告一份
□出席國際學術會議心得報告及發表之論文各一份
□國際合作研究計畫國外研究報告書一份
處理方式：除產學合作研究計畫、提升產業技術及人才培育研究計畫、列管計
畫及下列情形者外，得立即公開查詢
□涉及專利或其他智慧財產權，□一年□二年後可公開查詢
執行單位：國立中山大學外文系
中 華 民 國 93 年 10 月 11 日
II
一﹒中、英文摘要及關鍵詞：
中文摘要
關鍵字：失能研究、論述、敘事、文化集體潛意識
本計畫主要研究內容乃依據第一年研究結果所建構出來的各斷代失能論述為藍圖，實際進入
文學、電影、表演藝術作品重新解讀、詮釋這些文本著作，以期從這類文學作品的角色刻劃中窺
探這些敘事或敘述本身如何表徵或再現不同時代的失能論述，以及當時的社會大眾對失能者的態
度與認同。研究的焦點主要為探討這些敘事或敘述本身如何再現失能者身體之差異性在文化建構
中被譬喻、表徵、物化、或被畸形化的始末與過程，進而檢視主流社會的「體」
「能」健全者的意
識型態及偏見如何影響失能者，以及這些差異如何成為失能者心靈中烙印並主導他們的人際關
係、自我認同、與主體建構。
計畫重點從深層論述結構移至文化表徵形態與敘事書寫探究失能者的敘事內涵，研究的作品
涵蓋文學、藝術、以及電影媒體，主要以具有刻劃失能者獨特或變態的內心世界的文本為主，例
如依底怕斯王、聖經、理查三世、白鯨記、聲音與憤怒、玻璃動物園、象、Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get
Far on Foot , Geek Love, Bone Truth, The Ballad of Sad Cafe, Freak the Mighty , Sula, Autobiography of
a Face, Sight Unseen, "Hop-Frog," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "The Displaced Person,"
"Good Country People," "The Enduring Chill," "The Lame Shall Enter First," "Parker's Back,"
"Revelation," "Cathedral,"或是其他含有失能者角色刻劃的電影及表演藝術作品。
傳統文學藝術作品對失能者的角色刻畫有其刻板的形象，失能者往往被刻劃成一個社會退縮
者或局外人、人際關係失調者、無性者；這些身體上的差異或表徵，在一個在集體文化建構的過
程中總是被壓抑或排斥成為一個不被欲求的部份或是要被矯治或更正的，即便是經典之作或是宗
教作品對失能者的刻劃亦是充滿了歧視與偏見，任何人只要在身體方面有任何跟他人不同之標
記，此標記便會使此個體成為一個「他者」
，而此標記在深層的文化結構裡透過政治化以及意識型
態的運作往往又被賦予不同的意義。此外，失能者軀體之差異性也往往被用來影射失能者在心理、
道德、及靈性上的欠缺與瑕疵，因其破壞了一般人對身體的幻想與美感投射，同時也顛覆了所謂
的對稱（symmetry）､健康以及常態 (normalcy) 的概念，這些其實也都說明了殘缺、匱乏、失能
是文化集體潛意識的深層焦慮，對失能者而言，其身體上的缺陷處也正是其主體的烙印與認同之
所在。
III
英文摘要：
Key words: disability studies, discourse, narrative, ableism, body,
On the basis of the disclosure of the symbolic investments that produce and reproduce disabled
subject through different discourses in different paradigms, the second-year project explores the ways
that the physical difference or the body in its variations is metaphorized, promulgated, commodified,
normalized, abnormalized, formed, and deformed in literary narratives. It begins with the study of the
corporeal dimension of people with physical differences and how the differences function as a medium
to expose their intangible landscapes of psychology, morality, spirituality, and subjectivity. The disabled
body, averted and silenced, is often considered a synonym with deficiency and lack. To recognize its
overwhelming corporealness or lack is to locate the source of disability's stigmatization and identity. The
second-year project thus aims to examine how the discursive constructions and circulations of the
concept of disability represent, metaphorize, and symbolize themselves in literary narratives. It
privileges works that delineate the unique and even perverse psychic lives and subjectivities of people
with disabilities, such as Oedipus Rex, Richard III, Moby Dick, the Sound and Fury, the Glass
Menagerie, Elephant Man, and other works that cover the portrayals of disability (such as Don’t Worry,
He Won’t Get Far on Foot , Geek Love, Bone Truth, The Ballad of Sad Cafe, Freak the Mighty , Sula,
Autobiography of a Face, Sight Unseen, "Hop-Frog," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "The
Displaced Person," "Good Country People," "The Enduring Chill," "The Lame Shall Enter First,"
"Parker's Back," "Revelation," "Cathedral," and so on). It also exposes how they refract and reflect the
pathological impositions and prejudiced investments projected by the myriad ideologies of ableism that
compose the stigmatizing and conflictual subject of disability. As claimed, even the most revered and
liberal literary texts embody the prejudices and debilitating attitudes of their own historical moments in
stigmatizing disability. Consequently, in each of them the project analyzes how the physical differences
become a stigma for the disabled characters and how their differentness from the norm has been
insinuated into their social interactions, relational identity, and subjectivity.
The project draws on both Erving Goffman's Stigma Theory (Stigma: Notes on the Manage went of
Spoiled Identity) and Sharon Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis (Narrative Prosthesis: Disability
and the Dependenies of Discourse) to approach the literary narratives and texts. Through the survey and
analysis of the range of uses of disability in these narratives, the project provides a framework and
methods for assessing these representational devices of literary narratives on disability through the ages.
By all means, the aim of this project is not to conquer or cure disability or cover up its difference or
deviance from the norm; instead, it begins by recognizing and naming its own incomprehension in all its
forms to avoid essentializing the differences, eccentricities, and transgressions.
IV
二﹒報告內容：
前言
保障身心障礙者或失能者以及營造無障礙空間目前已是一個全球化的訴求，其主要目的乃在
保障所有不同形式的生命及其人權。1990 年美通過美國失能者保護法 Americans with Disabilities
Act 以確保身心障礙者或失能者的權益，使他們從社會的邊陲納入主流，當布希總統簽署此條款
時，他也同時宣告讓隔絕失能者的恥辱之牆倒下，"Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come
tumbling down"，自此美國學術界開始有為數不少的學者投入失能研究，其中包括本身為失能者的
學者。第一波的研究大約崛起於 80 年代，主要是自政治、法律、社會運動層面推動失能者權益，
第二波的發展在 90 年代之後，推動重點則在學術界的人文學門領域裡，其中包括設立失能研究的
科系或研究機構，例如漢特大學、加州大學耳灣校區、及芝加哥依利諾大學紛紛成立了失能研究
的學系及研究中心，在同時與此主題相關的書籍亦絡繹不絕的問世，此外，專門以失能研究為主
題的學術研討會也紛紛出現。在這一波研究中主要乃為失能議題在文化論述中建立其理論架構，
白儒柏(Michael Berube) 在他的《高等教育編年史》(The Chronicle of Higher Education 1997)的書
中也特別強調在探究有關失能者的文化表徵或再現模式中，建立失能的歷史、哲學、及文化義涵
有著不可磨滅的重要性，因此他大力鼓吹學者將失能研究納入人文學門研究中。事實上，在短短
的十年中，在歐美已有為數不少的學者專家自人文的角度探討失能的議題，其中主要的學者包括
法國的 Henri-Jacques Stike、美國的 Simi Linton, Paul K. Longmore, Ruth Butler, Carol Thomas,
Mairian Corker, Susan Crutchfield, Deborah Marks, Rosemarie Garland, Lennard J. Davis, Susan
Wendell, Nancy B. Miller, Gelya Frank Catherine 等學者。此外，在失能者的努力下，美國現代語言
協會(MLA) 也已將此議題納入其研究主題及資料庫，使得失能研究正式成為一研究主題，自此主
題建立後，屬於失能研究的相關文獻資料也已迅速增加。
在國內的文化研究領域裡，近年來許多學者專家致力於研究少數及弱勢族群的論述，例如女
性主義、後殖民論述、同志論述、酷兒研究，但擁有最多人口的障礙者或失能者的研究卻乏人問
津，使得失能者成為弱勢中的弱勢，值得省思的是文化論述是一個最開放、自由的對話場域，然
而失能者研究的匱乏或空白似乎突顯了現有的文化論述體系僅僅強化或表徵屬於體能健全者
(ableist) 的價值觀及意識型態。當失能研究已經在歐美地區開展時，國內學者對此議題的研究顯
得並不熱衷。這現象使得失能研究在台灣目前僅有實踐與應用層面的經驗而缺乏人文思想的論述
基礎。面對如是的情境，失能研究有其成為一個新的文化研究面向之必要性，因此人文學界對此
議題的探討有其緊迫必要性，使失能者在社會及文化論述中不至於被壓抑甚至完全消「音」失
「身」。
研究目的
在國內，近年來立法機關已逐漸針對失能者的權益及福利建立相關法案，並針對其在社會、
文化、及經濟層面的被邊緣化的危機開始有一些積極的建樹，不過人文學界的學者專家對此議題
V
的研究與投入則相對的顯得消極冷淡，使得失能者在所有具影響力的文化機構及知性探索上更明
顯的被置於邊陲處。目前雖然國科會也設有身心障礙諮詢網站，政府也大力推廣各種身心障礙者
的保護法令與福利，然而由於缺乏一套以人文角度為主軸的論述，使得所有與失能者或身心障礙
者的福利設施皆流由形式，值得省思的是，所有與失能有關的社會、文化活動或是研究多半由身
心障礙的公益社團主導，而素求重點則多在福利層面，這一切的福利措施並未使得失能者的生存
與生命尊嚴真正獲得尊重與接納，探討其原因，主要是因為在這些推動失能者的社會運動中，缺
少了有力的人文論述作為訴求基礎。此外，國科會於九十年六月所出刊的《人文與社會科學簡訊》
中針對跨領域研究主題構想中也提出打造無障礙環境的整體策略設計及績效評估主題，本篇文章
也指出建設無障礙環境是世界文民國佳的共同目標，也是我國國家建設中重大政策，但績效似乎
不彰，檢討其原因，除了法令不周、社會大眾對身心障礙認識的不足等原因外，主要還是缺乏一
套整體的以人文為主的策略設計或規劃，事實上，失能研究所探究的不僅只是人類行為、外表、
功能、感官、及認知上的差異，主要的乃是評析社會文化對失能者的定義以及其對這些「差異」
上所賦予的意義和所投射的情感，硬體的無障礙環境推廣植基於軟體的無障礙人本及人文文化，
有鑑於此，本計畫試圖將失能研究引介入文化研究的領域，除了為失能者建立其應有的歷史與文
化論述，並豐富文化研究的探索領域。
文獻探討
在一般角色刻劃的層面將參考 Paul Longmore “Screening Stereotypes” ，此篇文章的重點主要
把失能者在文學作品中的「孤立」以系統化的理論呈現。而 Martin Norden 的 Cinema of Isolation:
A History of Physical Disability in the Movies 以跨時代整體的方式分析媒體電影在視覺的表達層次
中對失能者的刻劃模，與此主題相關的尚有 Irving Zola 所列出許多失能論述的電影，而與失能者
相關的點影目前也有一專門網站收集相關資訊。網址為： (www.caravan.freeserve.co.uk)。另外
Cheryl Marie Wade 的 Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talk Back. 這部紀錄片自語言的層次表達一般人對
失能者所使用的語彙或溝通方式如何污名化失能者，藉此呈現健全者的意識形態對失能者的偏見
與歧視。此外 Tom Shakespeare, Kath Gillespie-sells, & Dominic Davis 的 The Sexual Politics of
Disability: Untold Desires 則強調性在所有談論失能者的論述中為一禁忌，失能者一方面被視為沒
有性別､性慾，但另一方面又將其視為性工具任人凌辱。
研究方法
本計劃採用的研究方法為史奈德 (Sharon Snyder) 的敘事輔助理論 (narrative prosthesis) ，主
要探討失能者在文學敘述中所扮演的角色與功能，史奈德的理論所指的是在一個敘事結構當中，
失能者經常是被用來作為「常態」的輔助支撐標記。因此在閱讀失能文學或失能敘述過程中，檢
視失能本身如何被用來作為一個敘述輔助，是史奈德對失能論述所提出的一個極有建樹的理論。
失能者既然是在文化建構中為定義常模的不可或缺者，他們究竟在文化中是一個文化他者或是文
化深層主體，從它所不被欲求的層面來看，失能者似乎是一個文化他者，但是就它作為建構常模
或正常概念的一個不可或缺的對稱他者而言，它其實是一個很重要的深層主體。值得玩味探討的
是，透過失能敘述輔助所所呈現的「正常」或「常態」概念本身無形中反而成為一個神話 (myth)，
VI
而失能反而在文化建構過程中深植在每個人內心當中，成為一個「實體」(real)，欠缺成為一個人
在建構主體當中的真正的核心。縱言之，透過以上的分析，本計畫期待提供一套研究文學作品中
失能角色的論述模式及方法。
結果與討論
近年來台灣及世界身心障礙者人數都在持續增加中，而在台灣成長率則維持在10％左右，對於這麼大 群的失能人口，如果不深入了解其問題及「差異」，將造成極大的社會問題，此計畫為國內推動身心障礙 保護法案及福利者，提出人文角度深入了解失能者的「另類」的生活及存在模式。台灣近十年來亦開始重 視身心障礙者的福利與權力，而這一切並未真正使得這群弱勢族群真正的尊重與認同，歧視與排斥依然是 主流大眾對這他們的態度，照顧弱勢族群往往停留在選舉競選的口號中，無障礙教育往往徒具形式，缺乏 內涵與尊重，細究起來，無論是社會大眾或是學者專家對失能者的了解經常與失能者真實的限制與需要有 極大的落差，縱然政府已針對失能者在社會福利與教育就業層面給於實質的經費補助，然而對失能者的了 解不足，往往所提供的服務與協助都不合適失能者的需要，造成經費的浪費，此點單從許多公共場所的斜 坡道與廁所未必符合障礙者使用的需要即可看出端倪，從監督到執行者都不了解、也不尊重失能者真實的 需要，所作的努力往往往往在消化經費，同樣的情形在各學校的「資源教室」以及各政府單位的職業訓練 與就業安置上都可見到。造成此一供需不平衡的原因很多，其中主要原因之一是失能研究在台灣目前僅有 實踐與應用層面的經驗而缺乏人文思想論述基礎。透過失能主題的研究，此計畫期待其研究成果能協助建 立具有失能者研究論述及服務系統。除此之外，當國內積極推動無障礙環境或無障礙教育時，除了提供失 能者生活上的福利與輔具外，實應自人文角度提供給失能者的主體空間，硬體的無障礙空間非常重要，然 而營照軟體的無障礙空開才是從根本處給予失能者生存的尊嚴。現有的文化論述多半侷限予表徵健全體魄 或是正常體格的價值觀，面對如是的「體」、「能」歧視，失能研究有其成為一個新的文化研究面向之必 要性。本計畫主要的貢獻則在文學領域開創一個新的屬於失能者的文化論述。除此之外，也希望藉此研究 在外文學門的課程中建立一套失能研究的素材及研究方法，將人文領域的面向帶入失能研究中，使得失能 研究不再被隔絕於人文學術領域之外。重要性及國內外有關本計畫之研究情況、重要參考文獻之評述等。
關於失能研究的文獻資料， 除了前段所述之文獻，其他所參考之文獻資料涵蓋的主題內容包
括失能者的身體、
「正常」的規範與標準、失能論述的知識、認同、主體、差異等議題：
Lennard Davis's Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body,
Arthur Frank's The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics,
Diane Price Herndl's Invalid Women: Figuring feminine Illness in American Fiction and Culture,
1840-1940,
David Hevey's The Creatures That Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Image, Martin Norden's
The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Disability in the Movies
Rosemarie Garland Thomson's Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture
and Literature,
Simi Linton’s Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity
David Wills's Prosthesiss
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至於與「身體」有關的相關文獻尚有以下之相關書籍：
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993
Browne, S. E., D. Connors, and N. Stern, ed. With the Power of Each Breath: A Disabled Women’s
Anthology. Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis Press, 1985.
Clark, Kenneth. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. New York: Pantheon, 1964.
Grant, Judith. Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory. New York:
Routledge, 1993.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. New York: Penguin, 1957.
Hennessy, Rosemary. Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse. New York: Routledge,
1993.
Nicholson, Linda, ed. Feminism/Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Oliver, Michael. The Politics of Disablement: A Sociological Approach. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1990.
Silverman, Kaja. “Historical Trauma and Male Subjectivity.” Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Ed. E.
Ann Kaplan. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Wicke, Jennifer. “Clebrity Material: Materialist Feminism and the Culture of Celebrity.” South Atlantic
Quarterly 93 (4): 751-78.
關於失能研究的文獻資料，在美國已初具規模，其中 David T. Mitchell 和 Sharon L. Snyder
所合編的 The Body and Physical Difference 重新自失能的角度書寫「身體」理論，他們不僅提供失
能者新的思考空間，並突顯現有的「身體」理論的盲點以及他們所預設的立場與假設，因此失能
研究亦能豐富「身體」理論的義涵與範疇。此外，目前現有的文學理論中，其實已有部份論文主
題是與失能研究相關的，例如 Jacques Derrida 的失明研究、Michel Foucault 的疾病、精神病研究、
Sander Oilman 的疾病研究、 David Rothman 的精神病院研究,、Erving Goffman 的創傷研究、Leslie
Fieldler 的怪物研究、Susan Sontag 的疾病的暗喻、 Mikhail Bakhtin 的怪誕研究等，這些作品雖然
不是列在失能研究的主題之列， 但是隨著失能研究的演變與發展，這些論述未來皆可納入其研究
範疇。
計畫成果自評
透過以上研究，藉此建立一套研究文學作品中失能角色的論述模式及方法。本計畫第二年的
研究文學斷代、重點議題、文本、所參考的主要文獻著作整理如下：
Integrating Disability Studies into Humanities
I. Introduction
Analytical questions:
How might disability studies in education inform my teaching practices?
How can I find other like-minds in my school to support the revision of our curriculum to include disability in more humane ways?
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Ware, Linda. “Writing, identity and the other: Dare we do disability studies?” Journal of Teacher
Education 52 (2) 2001.
___. A moral conversation on disability: Risking the personal in educational contexts. Hypatia 17 (3)
2002.
II. Disability in the Ancient World Analytical questions:
What are some major images of disability from the ancient world? Why are these images so powerful for us, two and a half millennia later?
In what ways are modern interpretations of these ancient images anachronistic?
How might these anachronisms be addressed, and what is the value of understanding ancient (or any) culture on its own terms?
Primary source materials:
Iliad 18.420-520 (the lame god Hephaestus). An accessible translation is: Lombardo, Stanley, trans. Iliad.
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
Herodotus 1.34, 85 (King Croesus’ “dumb” son). A good translation is: Rawlinson, George, trans. The Persian
Wars. New York: Random House, 1942.
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex. A faithful translation: Cook, Albert. Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations, ed. E.R. Lind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. 117-153.
Greek statuary such as the fifth-century Artemision Zeus, a bronze statue in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (such images are often interpreted as the measure of the perfect human body against which the imperfect body was measured). This and hundreds of other sculptural, architectural, and painted images from the
Graeco-Roman world are available from the Perseus Digital Library, www.perseus.tufts.edu. Secondary sources:
Clark, Patricia Ann. “The Balance of the Mind: The Experience and Perception of Mental Illness in Antiquity.” Diss. U of Washington, Seattle, 1993.
Edwards [Rose], Martha. “‘Let There be a Law That no Deformed Child Shall be Reared’: The Cultural Context of Deformity in the Ancient Greek World.” The Ancient History Bulletin 10.3-4 (July1997): 79-92.
Garland, Robert. “The Mockery of the Deformed and Disabled in Graeco-Roman Culture.” Laughter Down the
Centuries, ed. S. Jäkel and A. Timonen. Turku, Finland: Turun Yliopisto, 1994. 71-84.
III. Disability in the Dramatic Arts Major analytical questions:
What dramaturgical function does the representation of disability serve in the drama? (in terms of both content and plot structure)
What cultural/historical meanings of disability are inherent in these representations? Are they different from today's meanings?
How do playwrights with disabilities represent the disability experience in their work? What dramaturgical function does disability serve in these plays by people with disabilities?
Primary Texts:
Sophocles. Oedipus The King. Trans. Nicholas Rudall. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 2000. Williams, Tennessee. Glass Menagerie. New York: Dramatists Play Service. 1998.
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Secondary Texts:
Special Issue on Disability and Theatre. American Theatre Magazine. April 2001. (inlcudes five play published play excerpts by disabled playwrights)
Lewis, Victoria Ann, et. al. “P.H.*reaks: The Hidden History of People with Disabilities.” In: Staring Back:
The Disability Experience in America. Ed. Kenny Fries. New York: Penguin, 1997. 303-332.
Lewis, Victoria Ann. "The Dramaturgy of Disability." In: Points of Contact: Disability, Art, and Culture. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 2000. 93-108.
IV. Disability in the Eighteenth Century Major analytical questions:
How do ideas about disability in the eighteenth century newly legislate “normality” and “abnormality”? How does the eighteenth-century’s concern with defining bodily differences scientifically and “objectively” connect to its parallel concern with defining and embodying sexual and racial differences?
How does the study of disability during this period entail the study of “normative” ideas of individual identity on the one hand, and “aberrant” exceptional genius on the other? How did the eighteenth century define disability, particularly in relationship to literary authorship, as both illegible aberration and exemplary exception?
What is the relationship of disability to individuality?
If the eighteenth century culture of sensibility defined our ideas of sympathy and sociability, what can eighteenth-century constructions of disability tell us about the limits of that sympathy?
Primary Texts:
Addison Joseph, Spectator No. 58 (May 7, 1711), and No. 63 (May 12, 1711) [on true and false wit]
Bacon, Frances. "Of Deformity." "Of Beauty." The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral. Ed. Brian Vickers. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Ed. George Birkbeck Hill, rev. L.F Powell. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1934-50. (Selections)
Butt, John, ed. The Poems of Alexander Pope. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. "Epistle to Arbuthnot," "Epistle to a Lady."
Hay, William. Deformity: An Essay. London, 1754.
Johnson, Samuel. " A Review of Soame Jenyns' A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil." In The
Oxford Authors: Samuel Johnson, ed. Donald Greene (Oxford UP, 1984).
Leapor, Mary. "An Epistle to Artemisia. On Fame." "Mira's Picture." "The Headache. To Aurelia." "The Visit."
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Essays and Poems and "Simplicity," a Comedy. Ed. Robert Halsband. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. "Saturday. The Small Pox," (from Town Eclogues), "This once was me," "Verses Address'd to the Imitator of Horace."
Scott, Sarah. A Description of Millenium Hall. Ed. Gary Kelly. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1995. (emphasis on part one, pp. 53-77, especially 72-77).
Steele, Richard. Spectator 17 (March 20, 1711) [on the Ugly Club] V. Romantic Agony: From Solitude to Selfishness
Questions to guide analysis:
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and this suffering provides the basis for the self's claim to prophetic status. How does Romanticism define suffering that leads to wisdom? Is physical suffering alone sufficient to gain knowledge? What kinds of suffering do not count?
Only in solitude does the Romantic find sufficient peace of mind to think his or her own thoughts, to find freedom from the unjust demands of society. Nevertheless, the critical function of solitude often depends on the fact that the Romantic self chooses solitude, chooses to abandon society for nature. This function can be analyzed by comparing figures who choose solitude to those on whom solitude is forced. At the edges of canonical Romantic texts, one often finds "defective" minds and bodies expelled by society. What happens to Romantic heroes when they are forced to stand in the shadow of these more marginal, disabled figures?
Detractors of Romanticism attack its preoccupation with individuality, calling it a form of selfishness. The concept of narcissism puts another spin on selfishness by attributing it to mental or physical disability. When we are in pain, Freud argues, we are all narcissists. How does this pathologization affect the Romantic concept of the self? Primary Texts:
Coleridge, Samuel T. "Love." "The Nightingale." "Rime of the Ancyent Marinere." Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth
and Coleridge. Ed. R.L. Brett and A.R. Jones. 2nd Edition. London:Routledge, 1991.
Freud, Sigmund. "Narcissism: An Introduction." General Psychological Theory. New York: Colliers, 1962. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark." "Egotism; or the Bosom Serpent." "The Minister's Black Veil." "Wakefield." The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories. New York: Signet, 1963.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Fall of the House of Usher." "Hop-Frog." "Ligeia." "The Pit and the Pendulum." Great
Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Washington Square Press, 1940.
Wordsworth, William. "The Idiot Boy." "Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree." "Lucy Gray." "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." "The Thorn." "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey." Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth
and Coleridge. Ed. R.L. Brett and A.R. Jones. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 1991.
Secondary Texts:
Kermode, Frank. The Romantic Image. London: Routledge, 1957.
Thomas, Kenneth R. "Countertransference and Disability: Some Observations." Journal of Melanie Klein and
Object Relations 15.1 (1997): 145-61.
VI. Growing Up Disabled in Victorian British and American Literature and Culture Analytical Questions:
What identities for children and adults with disabilities are articulated by canonic nineteenth-century British and American literature?
What other conversations (educational, vocational, medical, scientific) were ongoing in Victorian British and American culture about the meaning of disability and its impact on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood? What is the ongoing effect of the cultural legacy of these nineteenth-century representations? What has changed and what has not?
How can we bring these contexts to our own classrooms (and still have time to cover the required reading)? And why should we do it? Why is this an important area of investigation and skill-building for middle and high school teachers and their students?
Participants will develop enough familiarity with the changing cultural history of disability to move beyond an "images of" approach to disability in literature, and will discuss not only texts but also classroom approaches,
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including videos and Internet resources. Primary Texts:
Craik, Dinah Maria. Mulock. Olive. 1850. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth.Christmas Books. 1852. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1954.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark." Donley, Carol, and Sheryl Buckley, ed. The Tyranny of the Normal. Kent: Kent State UP, 1985: 334-348.
Martineau, Harriet. "Letter to the Deaf." Miscellanies. By Martineau. Boston: Hilliard, Gray and Company, 1836. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1975.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Hop-Frog." Donley and Buckley 247-255. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. London: Penguin, 1985.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1886. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987. Secondary Texts:
Block, Laurie. Beyond Affliction: The Disability History Project. 4 Audiocassettes. Part 1. "Inventing the Poster Child." Conway, MA: Straight Ahead Pictures,1998.
Fiedler, Leslie. "Pity and Fear: Images of the Disabled in Literature and the Popular Arts." New York: International Center for the Disabled, 1981.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and
Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 1997. (selections)
Gitter, Elisabeth G. "Dickens and Samuel Gridley Howe." Dickens Quarterly VIII (1991): 162-68. Kent, Deborah. "In Search of a Heroine: Images of Women with Disabilities in Fiction and Drama." Fine, Michelle, and Adrienne Asch, eds. Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1988: 90-110.
Klages, Mary. Woeful Afflictions: Disability and Sentimentality in Victorian America. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1999. (selections)
Rosenberg, Charles. "The Bitter Fruit: Heredity, Disease and Social Thought in Nineteenth-Century America."
Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 189-235.
Stoddard Holmes, Martha. "Beyond Tiny Tim: How Disabled Boys Grow Up in Victorian Literature." (essay in progress.)
___. "The Twin Structure: A Disability Studies Approach to Canonic Victorian Literature." Brueggemann, Snyder, and Garland-Thomson, eds. Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. New York: Modern Language Association Press, 2002.
VII. Race, Gender, & Disability in the Gilded Age Major analytical questions:
How were representations of the newly minted independent American citizen founded on its contrast with women, people of color, and people with disabilities?
What kind of roles do disabled characters play with respect to the development of key nineteenth-century genres such as melodrama and horror?
What are the defining literary responses to the over-reaching tendencies of medicine and empirical science?
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Primary Texts:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-Mark.” The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories. New York: Signet, 1963. Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." Great Short Works of Herman Melville. New York: Harper Collins, 1987.
Phelps, Elizabeth. "The Tenth of January." The Silent Partner and “The Tenth of January” A Short Story. New York: Feminist P, 1983.
Crane, Stephen. "The Monster". Great Short Works of Stephen Crane. New York: Harper Collins, 1987. Secondary Texts:
Erkkila, Betsy. "Ethnicity, Literary Theory, and the Grounds of Resistance," American Quarterly, 47 (Dec., 1995): 563-594.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and
Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 1997.
VIII. Poetry of Disability Major analytical questions:
So often, poems are intimate, personal artifacts. How do cultural attitudes toward disability reveal themselves in poems? Does this make a case that culture is incorporated into our bodies? How is resistance to those attitudes demonstrated in poems?
How do form and content work with and against each other in poems about disability? Are poems by disabled poets fundamentally different from those by nondisabled poets? Do disabled poets use form or content any differently? Should they?
Primary Texts:
Davidson, Michael. "Missing Larry: The Poetics of Disability in the Work of Larry Eigner." Sagetrieb 18.1 (Spring 1999): 5-27.
Schweik, Susan. "The Voice of 'Reason'." Public Culture 13.3 (2001): 485-505.
