Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-211) and index.
Contents:
Cure narratives for the (post)human future. Life without Hope? Huntington's Disease and Genetic Futurity / Gerry Canavan. Theorizing disability in science fiction. Tools to Help You Think: Intersections between Disability Studies and the Writings of Samuel R. Delany / Joanne Woiak and Hioni Karamanos ; The Metamorphic Body in Science Fiction: From Prosthetic Correction to Utopian Enhancement / AntoĢnio Fernando Cascais ; Freaks and Extraordinary Bodies: Disability as Generic Marker in John Varley's "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" / Ria Cheyne ; The Many Voices of Charlie Gordon: On the Representation of Intellectual Disability in Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon / Howard Sklar -- Human boundaries and prosthetic bodies. Prosthetic Bodies: The Convergence of Disability, Technology and Capital in Peter Watts' Blindsight and Ian McDonald's River of Gods / Netty Matar ; The Bionic Woman: Machine or Human? / Donna Binns ; Star Wars, Limb-loss, and What it Means to be Human / Ralph Covino ; Animal and Alien Bodies as Prostheses: Reframing Disability in Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon / Leigha McReynolds -- Cure narratives for the (post)human future. "Great Clumsy Dinosaurs": The Disabled Body in the Posthuman World / Brent Walter Cline ; Disabled Hero, Sick Society: Sophocles' Philoctetes and Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze / Robert W. Cape, Jr. ; "Everything is always changing": Autism, Normalcy, and Progress in Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark and Nancy Fulda's "Movement" / Christy Tidwell ; Life without Hope? Huntington's Disease and Genetic Futurity / Gerry Canavan.
Summary:
In science fiction, technology often modifies, supports, and attempts to 'make normal' the disabled body. In this groundbreaking collection, twelve international scholars -- with backgrounds in disability studies, English and world literature, classics, and history -- discuss the representation of dis/ability, medical 'cures,' technology, and the body in science fiction. Bringing together the fields of disability studies and science fiction, this book explores the ways dis/abled bodies use prosthetics to challenge common ideas about ability and human being, as well as proposes new understandings of what 'technology as cure' means for people with disabilities in a (post)human future. -- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.