A new bibliography is now hosted in the library of the Independent Living
Institute:
"Glimpses of Disability in the Literature & Cultures of East Asia, South
Asia, the Middle East & Africa. A modern and historical bibliography,
briefly annotated.
http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200807.html
http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200807.pdf
This bibliography lists and annotates 130 novels, short stories,
biographies, literary criticism, and a few materials from philosophy,
anthropology and folklore, in which disability, deafness or mental
disorders play a significant part, in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle
East and Africa, available mostly in English or French.
A colleague informed me, around 2003, that disability was now fully owned
by English Literature. It took me some time to digest the idea, having
worked in Asian and African disability research, strategy and service
delivery for 25 years without consciously taking any notice of Eng. Lit.
Finally I understood that the message might simply be that 'disability' and
its literary representation was now recognised as a legitimate object or
field for literary study.
The development might have some merit. People who are interested
in 'Literature' tend to read quite a lot. They are habitual readers; and in
that respect they differ from many people in the disability world who are
not great readers. Further, despite the tendency to self-parody and wild
flights of the imagination, the 'Lit. Crit.' crowd does exercise some
critical and sceptical mentality on what it reads, while having some
facility in the articulation of its thoughts. (This too is in some contrast
with many folk in the disability world).
Much of this Asian, Middle Eastern and African 'literary' material was
already there, lonely as a daffodil, in odd corners of my bigger bibliogs,
and also in some other people’s lists. It is collected now for handier
access, with some new material and more 'literary' annotations. For anyone
who got tired with Tiny Tim, Captain Ahab, Richard III, Quasimodo, or with
marking essays on those characters, there are fresh seams to be mined in
the Orient, the Australent, and the Occipital Regions.
m. miles
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