Metanarratives of Disability

This book explores multiple metanarratives of disability to introduce and investigate the critical concept of assumed authority and the normative social order from which it derives. The book comprises 15 chapters developed across three parts and, informed by disability studies, is authored by those with research interests in the condition on which they focus as well as direct or intimate experiential knowledge. When out and about, many disabled people know only too well what it is to be erroneously told the error of our/their ways by non-disabled passers-by, assumed authority often cloaked in helpfulness. Showing that assumed authority is underpinned by a displacement of personal narratives in favour of overarching metanarratives of disability that find currency in a diverse multiplicity of cultural representations - ranging from literature to film, television, advertising, social media, comics, art, and music - this work discusses how this relates to a range of disabilities and chronic conditions, including blindness, autism, Down syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and HIV and AIDS. Metanarratives of Disability will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, medical sociology, medical humanities, education studies, cultural studies, and health. 'offers a well-structured, accessible collection of disability narratives that foreground disabled voices' Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 16.1 (2022)

David Bolt is Professor of Disability Studies and Director of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University, United Kingdom.

Part 1: International Developments of the Foundational Concept. 1. The Metanarrative of Blindness in North America: Meaning, Feeling, and Feel. 2. The Metanarrative of Blindness in the Global South: A LatDisCrit Counterstory to the Bittersweet Mythology of Blindness as Giftedness. 3. The Metanarrative of Blindness in India: Special Education and Assumed Knowledge Cultures. Part 2: Beyond Normative Minds and Bodies. 4. The Metanarrative of Mental Illness: A Collaborative Autoethnography. 5. The Metanarrative of OCD: Deconstructing Positive Stereotypes in Media and Popular Nomenclature. 6. The Metanarrative of Learning Disability: Vulnerability, Unworthiness, and Requiring Control. 7. The Metanarrative of Autism: Eternal Childhood and the Failure of Cure. 8. The Metanarrative of Down Syndrome: Proximity to Animality. 9. The Metanarrative of Dwarfism: Heightism and its Social Implications. Part 3: Chronic Conditions and the Emergence of Disability. 10. The Metanarrative of Chronic Pain: Culpable, Duplicitous, and Miserable. 11. The Metanarrative of Diabetes: Should You Be Eating That? 12. The Metanarrative of Cancer: Disrupting the Battle Myth. 13. The Metanarrative of HIV and AIDS: Losing Track of an Epidemic. 14. The Metanarrative of Sarcoidosis: Life in Liminality. 15. The Metanarrative of Arthritis: Playing and Betraying the Endgame.