The metanarrative of blindness : a re-reading of twentieth-century Anglophone writing / David Bolt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bolt, David, 1966-

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Series:

Corporealities

Corporealities: Discourses of Disability

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature, Modern--20th century--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

Blind in literature.

Blindness in literature.

People with disabilities in literature.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press, 2014.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Although the theme of blindness occurs frequently in literature, literary criticism has rarely engaged the experiential knowledge of people with visual impairments. The Metanarrative of Blindness counters this trend by bringing to readings of twentieth-century works in English a perspective appreciative of impairment and disability. Author David Bolt examines representations of blindness in more than forty literary works, including writing by Kipling, Joyce, Synge, Orwell, H. G. Wells, Susan Sontag, and Stephen King, shedding light on the deficiencies of these representations and sometimes revealing an uncomfortable resonance with the Anglo-American science of eugenics. What connects these seemingly disparate works is what Bolt calls "the metanarrative of blindness," a narrative steeped in mythology and with deep roots in Western culture. Bolt examines literary representations of blindness using the analytical tools of disability studies in both the humanities and social sciences. His readings are also broadly appreciative of personal, social, and cultural aspects of disability, with the aim of bringing literary scholars to the growing discipline of disability studies, and vice versa. This interdisciplinary monograph is relevant to people working in literary studies, disability studies, psychology, sociology, applied linguistics, life writing, and cultural studies, as well as those with a general interest in education and representations of blindness. Book jacket.

Contents:

An embodied introduction

1. Community, controversy, and compromise: The terminology of visual impairment

2. Character designation: Normate reductionism and nominal displacement

3. Come-to-bed eyes: Ophthalmocentrism, ocularcentrism, and symbolic castration

4. "A hand of the blind ventures forth": The grope, the grip, and haptic perception

5. Social friction and science fiction: Alterity, avoidance, and constructs of contagiousness

6. Visual violation: Staring, panopticism, and the unseen gazer

7. Culturally assisted suicide: The mourning and melancholia of blindnedd deconstructed.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pges 155-161) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472119066

9780472029587

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.5725818

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.