Research Catalog

Bodyminds reimagined : (dis)ability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction

Title
Bodyminds reimagined : (dis)ability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction / Sami Schalk.
Author
Schalk, Samantha Dawn
Publication
  • Durham ; London : Duke University Press, [2018]
  • ©2018

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library Sc E 18-877Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description
x, 180 pages; 24 cm
Summary
Traces how black women's speculative fiction complicates the understanding of bodyminds - the intertwinement of the mental and the physical - in the context of race, gender and (dis)ability. Bridging black feminist theory and disability studies, Schalk demonstrates that this genre's political potential lies in the authors' creation of bodyminds that transcend reality's limitations. She reads (dis)ability in neo-slave narratives by Octavia Butler ("Kindred") and Phyllis Alesia Perry ("Stigmata") not only as representing the literal injuries suffered under slavery, but also as a metaphor for the legacy of racial violence. The fantasy worlds in works by N.K. Jemisin, Shawntelle Madison, and Nalo Hopkinson - where werewolves have obsessive-compulsive disorder and blind demons can see magic - destabilize social categories and definitions of the human, calling into question the very nature of identity. In these texts, as well as in Butler's "Parable" series, able-mindedness and able-bodiedness are socially constructed and upheld through racial and gendered norms. Outlining (dis)ability's centrality to speculative fiction, Schalk shows how these works open up new social possibilities while changing conceptualizations of identity and oppression through nonrealist contexts.
Alternative Title
Body minds reimagined : disability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction
Subject
  • 1900-1999
  • American literature > African American authors > History and criticism
  • Speculative fiction > 20th century > Women authors > History and criticism
  • People with disabilities in literature
  • Race in literature
  • Gender identity in literature
  • American literature > African American authors
Genre/Form
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-174) and index.
Contents
Metaphor and materiality: disability and neo-slave narratives -- Whose reality is it anyway? deconstructing able-mindedness -- The future of bodyminds, bodyminds of the future -- Defamiliarizing (dis)ability, race, gender, and sexuality.
Call Number
Sc E 18-877
ISBN
  • 9780822370734
  • 0822370735
  • 9780822370888
  • 0822370883
  • 9780822371830 (ebook) (canceled/invalid)
LCCN
  • 2017036970
  • 99976217917
OCLC
985689502
Author
Schalk, Samantha Dawn, author.
Title
Bodyminds reimagined : (dis)ability, race, and gender in black women's speculative fiction / Sami Schalk.
Publisher
Durham ; London : Duke University Press, [2018]
Copyright Date
©2018
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-174) and index.
Chronological Term
1900-1999
Local Subject
Black author.
Other Standard Identifier
99976217917
Research Call Number
Sc E 18-877
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