Literature, Speech Disorders, and Disability

Examining representations of speech disorders in works of literature, this first collection of its kind founds a new multidisciplinary subfield related but not limited to the emerging fields of disability studies and medical humanities. The scope is wide-ranging both in terms of national literatures and historical periods considered, engaging with theoretical discussions in poststructuralism, disability studies, cultural studies, new historicism, gender studies, sociolinguistics, trauma studies, and medical humanities. The book's main focus is on the development of an awareness of speech pathology in the literary imaginary from the late-eighteenth century to the present, studying the novel, drama, epic poetry, lyric poetry, autobiography and autopathography, and clinical case studies and guidebooks on speech therapy. The volume addresses a growing interest, both in popular culture and the humanities, regarding the portrayal of conditions such as stuttering, aphasia and mutism, along with the status of the self in relation to those conditions. Since speech pathologies are neither illnesses nor outwardly physical disabilities, critical studies of their representation have tended to occupy a liminal position in relation to other discourses such as literary and cultural theory, and even disability studies. One of the primary aims of this collection is to address this marginalization, and to position a cultural criticism of speech pathology within literary studies.

Christopher Eagle is Research Lecturer in the Writing and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Introduction: Talking Normal 1. The Construction of the Disabled Speaker: Locating Stuttering in Disability Studies Joshua St. Pierre 2. On Prophetic Stammering Herbert Marks 3. Samuel Johnson and the Frailties of Speech Laura Davies 4. "Irate, with no grace of style" : Stuttering, Logorrhea, and Disordered Speech among Male Characters in Luís Vaz de Camões' The Lusiads (1572) 5. "Stuttutistics": On Speech Disorders in Finnegans Wake Chris Eagle 6. Jackson's Parrot: Samuel Beckett, Aphasic Speech Automatisms, and Psychosomatic Language Laura Salisbury and Chris Code 7. Staging Aphasia: Jean-Claude Van Itallie's The Traveller Gene A. Plunka 8. The Poetics of Tourette's Syndrome: Language, Neurobiology, and Poetry Ronald Schleifer 9. The Visualization of the Twisted Tongue: Portrayals of Stuttering in Film, Television, and Comic Books Jeffrey Johnson