Misgivings: Melville, Race, and the Ambiguities of Benevolence

Ryan, Susan M.

doi:10.1093/alh/12.4.685

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…After the Civil War, amid the implementation of laws providing pensions for disabled veterans, newspapers reported numerous stories on “Fake‐Veterans swindling the government.” Despite the lack of evidence for fraud, this extensive reporting influenced public attitudes toward this population that became “expressly tied to stereotyped themes in news accounts alleging illegitimacy, malingering, unworthiness, and undeservedness” (Blanck : 131–35). In the mid‐nineteenthth century, when “urban begging” became widespread (Stanley : 103–04; Ryan : 686), government sought to regulate disability and vagrancy, two closely connected categories (Schweik : 16; Stone : 29). At that time, a need arose to distinguish between those disabled beggars “worthy” of benevolence and charity and the “unworthy fake‐disabled beggars” in order to protect the public from the latter (Furui : 56).…”

Section: Section I: Disability Rights and Perceptions Of Fakerymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At that time, a need arose to distinguish between those disabled beggars “worthy” of benevolence and charity and the “unworthy fake‐disabled beggars” in order to protect the public from the latter (Furui : 56). “Disability, after all, could be faked, as could illness, hunger pains, and other sympathy‐eliciting elements” (Ryan : 686). This concern of the possibility of faking a disability and eliciting charity fomented the Ugly Laws—prohibiting those considered unsightly from appearing in public altogether and, consequently, solving the fear of fakery (Schweik ).…”

Section: Section I: Disability Rights and Perceptions Of Fakerymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fear of the Disability Con: Perceptions of Fraud and Special Rights Discourse

Dorfman¹

2019

Law Soc Rev

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This article presents a new framework for analyzing the development and implementation of disability law: the prism of the fear of “the disability con”—popular perceptions of fraud and fakery. We all encounter disability rights and accommodations in everyday life. However, people with disabilities pay a price for the legal recognition of their rights. People who park in disabled parking spots, use service dogs, move to the front of lines, receive Social Security benefits, or request academic accommodations are often viewed as faking disabilities and abusing the law. This disability con stereotype thus serves as an important invisible barrier preventing Americans with disabilities from fully taking part in society, as it not only undermines the public legitimacy of rights but also restricts the design and implementation of the legal regime illustrating those. Nevertheless, this moral panic around disability con in American society and its manifestations has yet to be studied in a systematic‐empirical way, nor has it been addressed in sociolegal scholarship. Using a mixed‐methods approach composed of an original nationally representative survey along with in‐depth interviews, this article fills this gap. The data suggest that the stereotype of disability con applies to multiple disability rights across venues and contexts; that nearly 60% of Americans with disabilities feel that others question their disability; that the stereotype of disability con extends to visible disabilities and to less apparent ones; and that, counterintuitively, the people most suspicious are nondisabled individuals with a personal connection to a disabled person and disabled people who experience suspicion themselves. Based on the richer understanding of the sociolegal phenomenon, this article suggests strategies to increase trust and reduce suspicion of the disability con.

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Section: Section I: Disability Rights and Perceptions Of Fakerymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Section I: Disability Rights and Perceptions Of Fakerymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of the Disability Con: Perceptions of Fraud and Special Rights Discourse

Dorfman¹

2019

Law Soc Rev

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Bartleby's Closed Desk: Reading Melville against Affect

Furui¹

2017

J. Am. Stud.

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To reconsider the affective turn in American literary studies, this essay reads Herman Melville's “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853), with reference to “Benito Cereno” (1855) and The Confidence-Man (1857), as an anti-affect story. By shedding light on silent characters in these works – Bartleby, Babo, and Black Guinea – it argues that Melville endeavors to adumbrate, not articulate, their private interiorities through language. Calling the inner recesses of his silent characters “secret emotions,” Melville probes into the boundaries between the effable and the ineffable by testing the limits of literary language. If “affect” refers to the kind of emotion that eludes signification through language, reading Melville in this manner encourages a reappraisal of the relationship between affect as a non-linguistic emotion and literature as a linguistic construct.

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Letters from Asylumia: The Opal and the Cultural Work of the Lunatic Asylum, 1851-1860

Reiss

2004

American Literary History

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Misgivings: Melville, Race, and the Ambiguities of Benevolence

Cited by 11 publications

References 37 publications

Fear of the Disability Con: Perceptions of Fraud and Special Rights Discourse

Fear of the Disability Con: Perceptions of Fraud and Special Rights Discourse

Bartleby's Closed Desk: Reading Melville against Affect

Letters from Asylumia: The Opal and the Cultural Work of the Lunatic Asylum, 1851-1860

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