Narrative Universes of Disability Global Perspectives

This volume explores and critically examines how disability is communicated to and comprehended by individuals and societies, focussing on the shaping of these narratives within diverse disciplinary environments, and their interrelation with institutions like academia. It delves into the intersection between disability and several new areas of study, such as translation studies, citizenship, inclusive design and accessibility, thereby broadening the scope of the discipline of disability studies. The volume highlights how disability embodiment shapes narrative structure, and challenges deeply entrenched ableist stratifications, hegemonies and hierarchies that prevail in the humanities and social sciences. It examines the theoretical, methodological and ethical narratives of human embodiment and disability by bringing together papers from various parts of the globe, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, focusing on diverse time segments, and dealing with different kinds of disability. Read together, the contributions to this volume reevaluate how disabled body-minds have been historically devalued down the ages, suggesting new ways of understanding/re-thinking this oppression and marginalization. This anthology is a valuable resource for students and researchers in cultural and critical disability studies.

Chapter 1: Mapping the Narrative Landscape of Disability: Ethnography, Identity, and Inclusion.- Section I: Ethnographic Accounts of Disability.- Chapter 2: Disabling Stories and Tales of Disability: Making Sense of Narratives in South India.- Chapter 3: Disability, Personal Narratives and Identity Formation: A Global South Perspective.- Chapter 4: Navigating Complex Realities: Everyday Experiences of Being Trans and Disabled.- Chapter 5: Re-engaging with the Aging Body: A Feminist Disability Perspective.- Section II: Negotiating Disability Identity in Literature.- Chapter 6: The Indian Short Story and its Discontent: Towards a More Affirmative Representation of Disability.- Chapter 7: Epistolary Embodiments: Lettering Narrative Universes of Blindness.- Chapter 8: Translating Disability: The First German Translation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus.- Section III: Narratives of Inclusion in Education and Design.- Chapter 9: Not only physical: The socio-cultural elements of disability reflected through pedagogical case studies from India and Israel.- Chapter 10: Can disabled people’s experiences of exclusion in pandemic higher education encourage the promotion of inclusive research practices?.- etc.

Someshwar Sati is Professor of English and Coordinator, Centre for Disability Studies and Research, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, India. He is currently Chairperson, Indian Disability Studies Collective. His recent works include three edited volumes titled Disability in Translation: The Indian Experience (Routledge 2020, with GJV Prasad), Reclaiming the Disabled Subject: Representing Disability in Short Fiction (Bloomsbury 2022, with Ritwick Bhattacharjee and GJV Prasad), and Retrieving the Crip Outsider: Representations of Disability in Literature and Culture (Bloomsbury, 2024). He is also a recipient of the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disability (2022) in the category of Sarvashresth Divyang bestowed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India.

Shilpa Das is Professor, Interdisciplinary Design Studies and leads the Master’s programme in Film and Video Communication, across the three campuses of the National Institute of Design, in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bengaluru, India. She is currently Vice-Chairperson, Indian Disability Studies Collective. Her research, teaching, and published work span disability studies, comparative aesthetics, Indian narrative traditions, Indian writing in English, translation, inclusive design and accessibility, human-centred design, design history, eco-social literacies, and public health. Some of her recent works are the edited issue of the American journal, Global Health: Science and Practice (2021) titled ‘Design for Health: Human-Centred Design Looks to the Future’ and an English translation of the French book Maman (Little Latitude, 2024).

Banibrata Mahanta is Professor of English at Banaras Hindu University, India. He is currently Vice-chairperson, Indian Disability Studies Collective. His areas of interest include Indian Writing in English, Indian nationalist thought, disability studies, and translation. Some of his recent works include the edited volume English Studies in India: Contemporary and Evolving Paradigms (Springer 2019) and an English translation of the Hindi novel Lavanyadevi (Orient Blackswan, 2024) for which he was awarded the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant (PEN America) in 2021.