{"product_id":"the-body-and-physical-difference-discourses-of-disability-the-body-in-theory-histories-of-cultural-materialism","title":"The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (The Body  In Theory: Histories Of Cultural Materialism)","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor years the subject of human disability has engaged those in the biological  social and cognitive sciences  while at the same time  it has been curiously neglected within the humanities. The Body and Physical Difference seeks to introduce the field of disability studies into the humanities by exploring the fantasies and fictions that have crystallized around conceptions of physical and cognitive difference. Based on the premise that the significance of disabilities in culture and the arts has been culturally vexed as well as historically erased  the collection probes our societys pathological investment in human variability and \"aberrancy.\" The contributors demonstrate how definitions of disability underpin fundamental concepts such as normalcy  health  bodily integrity  individuality  citizenship  and morality--all terms that define the very essence of what it means to be human. The book provides a provocative range of topics and perspectives: the absence of physical \"otherness\" in Ancient Greece  the depiction of the female invalid in Victorian literature  the production of tragic innocence in British and American telethons  the reconstruction of Civil War amputees  and disability as the aesthetic basis for definitions of expendable life within the modern eugenics movement. With this new  secure anchoring in the humanities  disability studies now emerges as a significant strain in contemporary theories of identity and social marginality. Moving beyond the oversimplication that disabled people are marginalized and made invisible by able-ist assumptions and practices  the contributors demonstrate that representation is founded upon the perpetual exhibition of human anomalies. In this sense  all art can be said to migrate toward the \"freakish\" and the \"grotesque.\" Such a project paradoxically makes disability the exception and the rule of the desire to represent that which has been traditionally out-of-bounds in polite discourse. The Body and Physical Difference has relevance across a wide range of academic specialties such as cultural studies  the sociology of medicine  history  literature and medicine  the allied health professions  rehabilitation  aesthetics  philosophical discourses of the body  literary and film studies  and narrative theory. David T. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English  Northern Michigan University. Sharon L. Snyder teaches film and literature at Northern Michigan University.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946994364469,"sku":"ByrdShop_0472066595","price":27.84,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780472066599.jpg?v=1769976507","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-body-and-physical-difference-discourses-of-disability-the-body-in-theory-histories-of-cultural-materialism","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}