Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature

Extraordinary Bodies is a cornerstone text of disability studies, establishing the field upon its publication in 1997. Framing disability as a minority discourse rather than a medical one, the book added depth to oppressive narratives and revealed novel, liberatory ones. Through her incisive readings of such texts as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson exposed the social forces driving representations of disability. She encouraged new ways of looking at texts and their depiction of the body and stretched the limits of what counted as a text, considering freak shows and other pop culture artifacts as reflections of community rites and fears. Garland-Thomson also elevated the status of African-American novels by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Extraordinary Bodies laid the groundwork for an appreciation of disability culture and an inclusive new approach to the study of social marginalization.

• Feminist, Queer, Crip
• Disability Theory (Corporealities: Discourses Of Disability)
• Distant Wars Visible: The Ambivalence of Witnessing (Critical American Studies)
• Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (Cultural Front)
• Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (Corporealities: Discourses Of Disability)
• Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials
• Listening to Images
• Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body
• Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
• Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure