Teresa Turnbull - Disability Studies

 

Literary Representation of Characters with Disabilites in Science Fiction

The field of science fiction (SF) has a long history of being a site for various genres and subgenres to converge, and a multitude of topics covered in the respective plots. Although SF offers the potential to imagine positive and progressive alternatives to the societ(ies) known by the reader, one might question SF literature’s ability to live up to this expectation when it comes to the representation of identity markers such as race, age, gender and disability. In her dissertation, Ms Turnbull attempts to deconstruct literary representations of characters with disabilities in the above-mentioned genre of science fiction (and closely related genres such as fantasy), focussing especially on the intersections of disability and gender, alternative body representations, and the question of humanit(ies).