A Brief Literary History of Disability is a convenient, lucid, and accessible entry point into the rapidly evolving conversation around disability in literary studies. The book follows a chronological structure and each chapter pairs a well-known literary text with a foundational disability theorist in order to develop a simultaneous understanding of literary history and disability theory. The book as a whole, and each chapter, addresses three key questions:
- Why do we even need a literary history of disability?
- What counts as the literature of disability?
- Should we even talk about a literary aesthetic of disability?
This book is the ideal starting point for anyone wanting to add some disability studies to their literature teaching in any period, and for any students approaching the study of literature and disability. It is also an efficient reference point for scholars looking to include disability studies approaches in their research.
Introduction
Part 1: Early Modern
Chapter 1: A Pre-History of Narrative Prosthesis
Chapter 2: Renaissance Historiography
Part 2: Eighteenth Century
Chapter 3: An Age of Enlightenment
Chapter 4: An Age of Satire
Part 3: Romantic
Chapter 5: Human Flourishing
Chapter 6: Approaching Normal
Part 4: Victorian
Chapter 7: Spectacular Metaphors
Chapter 8: Why Tonga Must Die
Part 5: Modernism/Postmodernism
Chapter 9: We Normals
Chapter 10: Destigmatizing Difference
Part 6: Contemporary
Chapter 11: Disability Autobiography
Chapter 12: The Coalitional Politics of Disability
Biography
Fuson Wang is an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he is currently the co-director of the Medical and Health Humanities Studies program. He has published widely in British Romantic literature, disability studies, and medical humanities.
