Disability and Culture: The usefulness of Davis’ argument about the relationship between the concept of normalcy and cultural production PDF Download

Author: Leila Fielding
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656293562
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: 1:1 (First Class), , language: English, abstract: Disability is a natural part of the human condition. Almost everyone you cross paths with will possess some form of deviance from the socially enforced ideological norm, whether or not they choose to let this be apparent. Every person will, at some point, experience some form of impairment or disability during their lives; be it brought on by disease, depression, old age, injury or deterioration. “Disabilities are less the property of persons than they are moments in a cultural focus. Everyone in any culture is subject to being labelled and disabled.” Yet, despite the temporality of ability, disability is still marginalised, distorted and concealed within mainstream culture. Types and categories of disability are extensive, escalating and erratic. It is therefore absurd that society clings to the notion of normalcy like an anxious child clutching its mother’s hand. People are disabled by culture, as well as by society. Depending on how difference is perceived and acknowledged, people can be enabled or disabled by those around them. Disabilities are therefore manufactured by society and represented by culture.

Author: Leila Fielding
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783656294108
Category : Disability studies
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: 1:1 (First Class), - (MMU, BA Hons), language: English, abstract: Disability is a natural part of the human condition. Almost everyone you cross paths with will possess some form of deviance from the socially enforced ideological norm, whether or not they choose to let this be apparent. Every person will, at some point, experience some form of impairment or disability during their lives; be it brought on by disease, depression, old age, injury or deterioration. "Disabilities are less the property of persons than they are moments in a cultural focus. Everyone in any culture is subject to being labelled and disabled." Yet, despite the temporality of ability, disability is still marginalised, distorted and concealed within mainstream culture. Types and categories of disability are extensive, escalating and erratic. It is therefore absurd that society clings to the notion of normalcy like an anxious child clutching its mother's hand. People are disabled by culture, as well as by society. Depending on how difference is perceived and acknowledged, people can be enabled or disabled by those around them. Disabilities are therefore manufactured by society and represented by culture.

Author: Paul Wake
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134123272
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Now in a fully updated second edition The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory is an indispensible guide for anyone approaching the field for the first time. Exploring ideas from a diverse range of disciplines through a series of 11 critical essays and a dictionary of key names and terms, this book examines some of the most complex and fundamental theories in modern scholarship including: Marxism Trauma Theory Ecocriticism Psychoanalysis Feminism Posthumanism Gender and Queer Theory Structuralism Narrative Postcolonialism Deconstruction Postmodernism With three new essays, an updated introduction, further reading and a wealth of new dictionary entries, this text is an indispensible guide for all students of the theoretically informed arts, humanities and social sciences.

Author: Lennard J. Davis
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784780014
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
In this highly original study of the cultural assumptions governing our conception of people with disabilities, Lennard J. Davis argues forcefully against "ableist" discourse and for a complete recasting of the category of disability itself. Enforcing Normalcy surveys the emergence of a cluster of concepts around the term "normal" as these matured in western Europe and the United States over the past 250 years. Linking such notions to the concurrent emergence of discourses about the nation, Davis shows how the modern nation-state constructed its identity on the backs not only of colonized subjects, but of its physically disabled minority. In a fascinating chapter on contemporary cultural theory, Davis explores the pitfalls of privileging the figure of sight in conceptualizing the nature of textuality. And in a treatment of nudes and fragmented bodies in Western art, he shows how the ideal of physical wholeness is both demanded and denied in the classical aesthetics of representation. Enforcing Normalcy redraws the boundaries of political and cultural discourse. By insisting that disability be added to the familiar triad of race, class and gender, the book challenges progressives to expand the limits of their thinking about human oppression.

Author: Benjamin Fraser
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 184631870X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to apply the tenets of disability studies—in particular the study of mental disabilities—to Spanish cultural contexts, offering an assessment of disability as it is engaged by Spanish films, novels, comics, and other artworks. Innovatively bringing disability theory into dialogue with film and literary analysis, Benjamin Fraser shows how formal aspects of art and media in Spain highlight, frame, inform, and are informed by contemporary disability legislation there, as well as by disability advocacy, cultural perception, and social integration. By using the specific context of Spanish culture, he outlines broader shifts in social attitudes and theoretical understandings of disability.

Author: Lennard J. Davis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0415953340
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
The second edition of "The Disability Studies Reader" builds and improves upon the classic first edition, which has sold well over 6000 copies since 1999. As a field, disability studies burst onto the scene across the social sciences and humanities in the 1990s, and the first edition of the reader gathered the best work that had been written on the subject, including essays by famous authors such as Susan Sontag and Erving Goffman. The new edition is more global in its coverage and adds material on genetic testing, the human genome, queer studies, and issues in developing countries. The size of the audience has grown since the first edition's publication, and the second edition's new material will make it even more useful for courses on the subject. Courses on the subject have mushroomed in the past ten years, and can now be found across the social sciences, humanities, and behavioral sciences.

Author: Dan Goodley
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446248283
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This introduction to disability studies represents a clear, engaging and consistently thought-provoking study of the field. The book discusses the global nature of disability studies and disability politics, introduces key debates in the field and represents the intersections of disability studies with feminist, class, queer and postcolonial analyses. The book has a clear and coherent format which matches the interdisciplinary framework of disability studies - including chapters on sociology, critical psychology, discourse analysis, psychoanalysis and education. Sitting alongside discussions on the global and glocal significance of disability studies these chapters include: Society: Sociological disability studies Individuals: De-psychologising disability studies Psychology: Critical psychological disability studies Culture: Psychoanalytic disability studies Education: Inclusive disability studies Each chapter engages with important areas of analysis such as the individual, society, community and education to explore the realities of oppression experienced by disabled people and to develop the possibilities for addressing it. Broad, dynamic and interdisciplinary in scope this book will be crucial reading for students, researchers and practitioners alike.

Author: Lennard Davis
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472052020
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
In an era when human lives are increasingly measured and weighed in relation to the medical and scientific, notions of what is “normal” have changed drastically. While it is no longer useful to think of a person’s particular race, gender, sexual orientation, or choice as “normal,” the concept continues to haunt us in other ways. In The End of Normal, Lennard J. Davis explores changing perceptions of body and mind in social, cultural, and political life as the twenty-first century unfolds. The book’s provocative essays mine the worlds of advertising, film, literature, and the visual arts as they consider issues of disability, depression, physician-assisted suicide, medical diagnosis, transgender, and other identities. Using contemporary discussions of biopower and biopolitics, Davis focuses on social and cultural production—particularly on issues around the different body and mind. The End of Normal seeks an analysis that works comfortably in the intersection between science, medicine, technology, and culture, and will appeal to those interested in cultural studies, bodily practices, disability, science and medical studies, feminist materialism, psychiatry, and psychology.

Author: Kagendo Mutua
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1617357731
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This edited volume explores various issues pertaining to the education of children with disabilities in Africa, the Caribbean and Middle East. As a group, persons with disabilities have been subjected to social, cultural and educational exclusions of various forms and for various socially-scripted reasons. In education, for instance, individuals with disabilities have been altogether excluded from educational participation in many parts of the developing world or they have been excluded from pursuing meaningfully beneficial higher levels of education in developed countries like the United States. One of the social responses/remedies to the widely-acknowledged exclusionary practices experienced by learners with disabilities has been the widespread implementation of inclusive practices in the education of individuals with disabilities across countries, in the west and the developing regions of the world. A distinctive marker of difference in the way inclusive practices have been enacted in western countries versus those in the developing world has primarily stemmed from the fact that majority of western countries operate under funded mandates that also regulate the provision of education to persons with disabilities. While the ideal of inclusion has been highly desirable, many of countries in the developing world have floundered in their implementation due to lack sound legislative framework to guide implementation coupled with socio-cultural factors related to negative perceptions of disabilities and limited funding sources. Chapters in this volume explore inclusive education from a variety of perspectives.

Author: Nancy Hansen
Publisher: Canadian Scholars
ISBN: 177338046X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
This long-awaited reader explores the history of Canadian people with disabilities from Confederation to current day. This edited collection focuses on Canadians with mental, physical, and cognitive disabilities, and discusses their lives, work, and influence on public policy. Organized by time period, the 23 chapters in this collection are authored by a diverse group of scholars who discuss the untold histories of Canadians with disabilities―Canadians who influenced science and technology, law, education, healthcare, and social justice. Selected chapters discuss disabilities among Indigenous women; the importance of community inclusion; the ubiquity of stairs in the Montreal metro; and the ethics of disability research. This volume is a terrific resource for students and anyone interested in disability studies, history, sociology, social work, geography, and education. Untold Stories: A Canadian Disability History Reader offers an exceptional presentation of influential people with various disabilities who brought about social change and helped to make Canada more accessible.