Disability and the Gothic

An Element on Gothic literature and disability studies that gives an introduction to disability studies as a critical approach.

Disability is central to the Gothic imagination; but few accounts of Gothic literature interpret this genre with attention to experiences of disability embodiment, or of the socially determined aspects of disability. This Element brings disability theory to the reading of nineteenth-century Gothic literature.Disability is central to the Gothic imagination. This Element draws together disability and Gothic literature in ways that show the interplay between them. The first chapter offers a brief history of Critical Disability Studies, and the manner in which Gothic has been integral to the evolution of disability theory. It shows the increasing centrality of the Gothic to the development of Critical Disability Studies, and describes the emergence of the subfield of Gothic Disability Studies. The second chapter and third chapters offer close readings of particular texts, showing how Gothic bodies and minds articulate and shift their relationship to the aesthetic and affective frameworks of the nineteenth century. While disability sometimes represents the 'other' in Gothic literature, this positioning far from exhausts the ways in which disability is presented in this genre.