Bodyminds reimagined : (dis)ability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction / Sami Schalk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schalk, Samantha Dawn, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--African American authors.

Speculative fiction--20th century--Women authors--History and criticism.

Speculative fiction.

People with disabilities in literature.

Race in literature.

Gender identity in literature.

Women authors.

Physical Description:

x, 180 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Body minds reimagined : disability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction

Place of Publication:

Durham ; London : Duke University Press, [2018]

Summary:

Traces how black women's speculative fiction complicates the understanding of bodyminds - the intertwinement of the mental and the physical - in the context of race, gender and (dis)ability. Bridging black feminist theory and disability studies, th author demonstrates that this genre's political potential lies in the authors' creation of bodyminds that transcend reality's limitations. She reads (dis)ability in neo-slave narratives by Octavia Butler ("Kindred") and Phyllis Alesia Perry ("Stigmata") not only as representing the literal injuries suffered under slavery, but also as a metaphor for the legacy of racial violence. The fantasy worlds in works by N.K. Jemisin, Shawntelle Madison, and Nalo Hopkinson - where werewolves have obsessive-compulsive disorder and blind demons can see magic - destabilize social categories and definitions of the human, calling into question the very nature of identity. in these texts, as well as in Butler's "Parable" series, able-mindedness and able-bodiedness are socially constructed and upheld through racial and gendered norms. Outlining (dis)ability's centrality to speculative fiction, the author shows how these works open up new social possibilities while changing conceptualizations of identity and oppression through nonrealist contexts.

Contents:

Metaphor and materiality: disability and neo'slave narratives

Whose reality is it anyway? deconstructing able-mindedness

The future of bodyminds, bodyminds of the future

Defamiliarizing (dis)ability, race, gender, and sexuality.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [159]-174) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Schalk, Samantha Dawn. Bodyminds reimagined.

ISBN:

9780822370734

0822370735

9780822370888

0822370883

OCLC:

985689502