De/Coupling Monstrosity and Disability
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Monsters: The Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application (MEARCSTAPA)
Organizer Name
Asa Simon Mittman, Richard H. Godden
Organizer Affiliation
California State Univ.-Chico, Tulane Univ.
Presider Name
Richard H. Godden
Paper Title 1
"Blob Child" Revisited: Conflations of Monstrosity, Disability, and Race in King of Tars
Presenter 1 Name
Molly Lewis
Presenter 1 Affiliation
George Washington Univ.
Paper Title 2
Body of the Madman
Presenter 2 Name
Esra Genc Arvas
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Paper Title 3
Whose Kids Are You Calling Monsters? Capacious Concepts of Childhood Disability in Medieval Literature
Presenter 3 Name
Dani Alexis Ryskamp
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Western Michigan Univ.
Paper Title 4
Response
Presenter 4 Name
Tory V. Pearman
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Miami Univ. Hamilton
Start Date
14-5-2015 1:30 PM
Session Location
Fetzer 1045
Description
It has been famously argued that in the Middle Ages there was no conception of the disabled as it would accord with modern notions of embodied difference. In looking for figures of the disabled and the deformed, scholars in medieval disability studies have often looked to monstrosity as an overlapping, if not entirely identical category. We are looking for papers that address the intersection of monstrosity and disability in provocative and searching ways. We especially encourage papers that do not simply collapse these two categories but rather look to interrogate the convergence and divergence of the monstrous and the impaired. What is the effect of reading monsters as disabled and the disabled as monstrous? How does the coupling of these two Othered figures obscure important features? How does reading them together illuminate the social and cultural processes by which difference is constructed? We invite papers from all disciplines and national traditions.
Asa S. Mittman
De/Coupling Monstrosity and Disability
Fetzer 1045
It has been famously argued that in the Middle Ages there was no conception of the disabled as it would accord with modern notions of embodied difference. In looking for figures of the disabled and the deformed, scholars in medieval disability studies have often looked to monstrosity as an overlapping, if not entirely identical category. We are looking for papers that address the intersection of monstrosity and disability in provocative and searching ways. We especially encourage papers that do not simply collapse these two categories but rather look to interrogate the convergence and divergence of the monstrous and the impaired. What is the effect of reading monsters as disabled and the disabled as monstrous? How does the coupling of these two Othered figures obscure important features? How does reading them together illuminate the social and cultural processes by which difference is constructed? We invite papers from all disciplines and national traditions.
Asa S. Mittman