Disability in science fiction : representations of technology as cure / edited by Kathryn Allan.

Date:
2013
  • Books

About this work

Description

In science fiction, technology often modifies, supports, and attempts to 'make normal' the disabled body. In this groundbreaking collection, twelve international scholars -- with backgrounds in disability studies, English and world literature, classics, and history -- discuss the representation of dis/ability, medical 'cures,' technology, and the body in science fiction. Bringing together the fields of disability studies and science fiction, this book explores the ways dis/abled bodies use prosthetics to challenge common ideas about ability and human being, as well as proposes new understandings of what 'technology as cure' means for people with disabilities in a (post)human future. -- Provided by publisher.

Publication/Creation

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Physical description

vi, 217 pages ; 24 cm

Contributors

Contents

Introduction: Reading Disability in Science Fiction / Kathryn Allan -- Theorizing disability in science fiction. Tools to Help You Think: Intersections between Disability Studies and the Writings of Samuel R. Delany / Joanne Woiak and Hioni Karamanos ; The Metamorphic Body in Science Fiction: From Prosthetic Correction to Utopian Enhancement / António Fernando Cascais ; Freaks and Extraordinary Bodies: Disability as Generic Marker in John Varley's "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" / Ria Cheyne ; The Many Voices of Charlie Gordon: On the Representation of Intellectual Disability in Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon / Howard Sklar -- Human boundaries and prosthetic bodies. Prosthetic Bodies: The Convergence of Disability, Technology and Capital in Peter Watts' Blindsight and Ian McDonald's River of Gods / Netty Matar ; The Bionic Woman: Machine or Human? / Donna Binns ; Star Wars, Limb-loss, and What it Means to be Human / Ralph Covino ; Animal and Alien Bodies as Prostheses: Reframing Disability in Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon / Leigha McReynolds -- Cure narratives for the (post)human future. "Great Clumsy Dinosaurs": The Disabled Body in the Posthuman World / Brent Walter Cline ; Disabled Hero, Sick Society: Sophocles' Philoctetes and Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze / Robert W. Cape, Jr. ; "Everything is always changing": Autism, Normalcy, and Progress in Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark and Nancy Fulda's "Movement" / Christy Tidwell ; Life without Hope? Huntington's Disease and Genetic Futurity / Gerry Canavan.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-211) and index.

Languages

Subjects

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    CU /DIS
    		Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781137343420
  • 1137343427