Signifying Selves

Couser, G. Thomas

doi:10.1017/9781316104316.015

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…I therefore offer the caveat that I am positioned in various ways. Theorizing embodiment ─ whether one's own or others ─ is difficult, and I resort to using the abstraction "the body" or the "bodymind" to designate how subjectivity is entangled in the body, and possibly with other "things" (Couser, 2012). Along with Bergson (1992), I posit that reality is mobile: things "out there" are in the making, and states are not fixed but are always in a process of change.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Listening to Epilepsy: Reexamining SoundCloud, Sonic Desire, and Affective Labor

Chilianis¹

2018

Catalyst

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While many patients who are ill form significant networks of support online I argue that to describe experiences in language over social media is not always desirable for someone with epilepsy. My line of inquiry instead explores the tension between music creation and fragmented subjectivity, and folds in a critique of SoundCloud, the music sharing and networking site. I start with an analysis of what it means for the subject to compose and produce electronic music, and then with an analysis of my own music on SoundCloud. I investigate affective attachment in relation to our entanglement with music and social media, and I extend this to a survey of subjectivity, physicality and networked capitalism. In the article, affect and listening are related through their materiality and space, and by their capacity to mediate sound and meaning. I examine listening for its potential to expand critical activity in accord with embodied processes that are relevant to situated disability. Listening and affect guide my argument as concepts, and I conclude that distinct facets of listening can be connected to an ethics of living in the information society.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Listening to Epilepsy: Reexamining SoundCloud, Sonic Desire, and Affective Labor

Chilianis¹

2018

Catalyst

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“…As Christina Crosby argues in her autobiography A Body, Undone: Living on After Great Pain (2016), many narratives of chronic pain and disability are based on the premises of hope, the possibility of overcoming adversities, and the focus on personal growth. For example, narratives of 'inspiration' or 'triumph over adversity' (Heideman 2015;Couser 1997Couser , 2009, in which a person with disability fights against all odds and eventually succeeds, follow the ideals of self-reliance, acceptance, perseverance, growth and overcoming, thereby ignoring the interpersonal, social, political and historical dimensions of disability. Such "inspiration narratives" -sometimes polemically called "inspiration porn" (Heideman 2015; Grue 2016)are highly controversial: while they do present a somewhat positive message about disability, they construct people with disability as "objects of inspiration," as Stella Young puts it (Young 2014, n.pag.…”

Section: Disability and Literary Genresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrating Disability in Literature and Visual Media: Introduction

Wohlmann

Rana

2019

Zeitschrift Für Anglistik Und Amerikanistik

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This introduction to the special issue attempts to map the intersections between disability studies on the one hand and literature and cultural studies on the other hand. We discuss concepts of disability as a social construction before we turn to literary and cultural approaches to disability, which involve controversies and questions about genre, narrative frames, recurring themes, and form. The last section gives an overview of how literary representations of disability resonate with life writing and identity theories.

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“…Contending neither with the ethical responsibility of memoirists to the person they are representing and to the historical record,22 nor with audience reception of the work shaped by these considerations, AFH has more scope than Iris to emphasise flexibility of relationships. By contrast, Bayley's memoir was subject to attack on the grounds that some of the decisions he made about what to disclose about Murdoch's life demeaned her dignity,23 and inadvertent misrepresentation is another ever-present risk in writing about the illness experiences of those who can no longer represent themselves 24. Awareness of this perhaps informs the repeated acknowledgement in Iris of how difficult it is for even John to be confident of really knowing her fully [eg, 50:55, 1:08:43].…”

Section: The Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carers’ responses to shifting identity in dementia inIrisandAway From Her: cultivating stability or embracing change?

Orr

Teo

2015

Med Humanities

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An emphasis on supporting and maintaining self-identity in dementia for as long as possible has gone hand in hand with the revitalisation of interventions, services and empowerment for people with dementia. However, recognition of the need for change, adaptation and personal growth is as necessary when living with dementia as at any other time in people's lives.Those who care for people with dementia must constantly navigate this tension between continuity and change within the context of memory loss, knowing when to respond by reinforcing the 'self' they have known over time, and when it may be better to respond by acknowledging the changes that have taken place. The creative arts are avenues for the exploration of the caring relationship under these conditions, conveying the challenges and stimulating audiences to ask themselves how they might choose to respond in a similar situation. This article considers how the scenarios of two noted films, Iris (dir. Richard Eyre, 2001 UK) and Away From Her (dir. Sarah Polley, 2006 Can), present the dilemmas of identity and care. In both, a husband cares for a wife experiencing cognitive decline, but responds differently in each to her shifting needs and changes in identity. We argue that the two films reveal complementary and provocative perspectives on this situation, and, though they offer no easy answers, provide insights into the dilemmas and decisions characteristic of caring for someone who has dementia.

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Signifying Selves

Cited by 9 publications

References 103 publications

Listening to Epilepsy: Reexamining SoundCloud, Sonic Desire, and Affective Labor

Listening to Epilepsy: Reexamining SoundCloud, Sonic Desire, and Affective Labor

Narrating Disability in Literature and Visual Media: Introduction

Carers’ responses to shifting identity in dementia inIrisandAway From Her: cultivating stability or embracing change?

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