[H]e reproaches me with want of beauty and loss of sight: “A monster huge and hideous, void of sight.” … [B]ut he immediately corrects himself, and says, “though not indeed huge, for there cannot be a more spare, shrivelled and bloodless form.” It is of no moment to say any thing of personal appearance, yet…
Category: Disability
Aversion to Aging: Futuristic Science Fiction and Ageism
Science fiction, a genre known for its extrapolations into the future, seem Science fiction. For a genre that is known for its seemingly equitable futures, it sure seems to take issue with age and aging. Indeed, disability studies scholar Alison Kafer notes that “Whenever I tell people I have been working on a book about…
Meeting on a Bridge of Silence: A Talk With Géraldine Berger, Bilingual Performer in French and Sign Language
“Géraldine Berger has no hearing disability. And yet, she has been speaking sign language for almost twenty years. This French “bilingual performer” – she makes a statement of being identified as such – has worked on more than thirty artistic productions involving deaf artists.”
“There Goes the Monster”: gazing at blind men in Restoration tragedy, part II
Pasquale S. Toscano // In my last article for Synapsis on Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671), I mentioned that much of the tragedy is concerned with the fact that its blind hero is “[m]ade of his enemies the scorn and gaze” (34).[1] It’s worth highlighting this thematic epicenter not only because scholars more often emphasize Restoration…
My Anxious Brain Inspires Me
Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo // “A writer….must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument…This is even stronger in the case of the artist that happens, including humiliations. embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art.” -Jorge Luis Borges This story offers a snapshot into my head to provide a humanistic…
Notes on Spinal Catastrophism
Travis Chi Wing Lau // “It is the duty of a spine to destroy the universe; or, a spine is the universe’s method of acknowledging this duty to self-destruct.”[1] To my scoliosis, reads the dedication to Thomas Moynihan’s Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History (Urbanomic 2019). This line alone was more than enough for me to…
Turning Forty and a Corner: a Storyteller’s Data Analysis on an Empathic Life Lived So Far
Cover Image: Mujer by Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo 2021. Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo // OUT OF THIS WORLD Learning that I was an empath changed my life. It wasn’t that this label gave me meaning or purpose; it just simply explained “me.” As an artist, being sensitive is celebrated and somewhat necessary to create. In academia, emotions and feelings should…
“Let Be Assigned Some Narrow Place Enclosed”: Requesting Accommodations Has Always Been Tricky Business
Pasquale S. Toscano // I often reflect that since many days of darkness are destined to everyone, as the wise man warns, mine thus far, by the signal kindness of Providence, between leisure and study, and the voices and visits of friends, are much more mild than those lethal ones. John Milton, “To Leonard Philaras”…
“Making the Poem Physical”: A Talk With Kamil Guenatri, A Disabled Performance Artist
Pauline Picot // Kamil Guenatri is a performance artist. He first started working as a computer engineer before changing his course entirely at the age of 25, when he decided to practice performance art. Since 2010, he has been creating and presenting his work in France and abroad.
Austen, Expectations, and Crips in the World
Pasquale S. Toscano // I’ve been reading a great deal of Jane Austen lately, which is odd, because I’ve never considered myself a fan of the grande dame of English letters. All of her plots are so damn predictable, and well—how shall we put this—quaint. And then there are those maddeningly handsome gentlemen and far-too-fetching…