Extraordinary Bodies - 20th Edition by Rosemarie Garland Thomson (Paperback)

About the Book

Extraordinary Bodies is a cornerstone text of disability studies, establishing the field upon its publication in 1997. Framing disability as a minority discourse rather than a medical one, the book added depth to oppressive narratives and revealed novel, liberatory ones.

Book Synopsis

Extraordinary Bodies is a cornerstone text of disability studies, establishing the field upon its publication in 1997. Framing disability as a minority discourse rather than a medical one, the book added depth to oppressive narratives and revealed novel, liberatory ones. Through her incisive readings of such texts as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson exposed the social forces driving representations of disability. She encouraged new ways of looking at texts and their depiction of the body and stretched the limits of what counted as a text, considering freak shows and other pop culture artifacts as reflections of community rites and fears. Garland-Thomson also elevated the status of African-American novels by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Extraordinary Bodies laid the groundwork for an appreciation of disability culture and an inclusive new approach to the study of social marginalization.

Review Quotes

Extraordinary Bodies addresses a subject of great significance and topicality with originality and sophistication; it is, or should become, a seminal work in the emerging field of disability studies.--G. Thomas Couser "MELUS"

[A]n adventurous, sensible, passionate book that invites readers to rethink the ground-breaking work of theorists who have shaped academic discourse on marginality and the female body.--Catherine J. Kudlick "Journal of Social History"

[Thomson] digs deep and offers profound insights into the interrelationships among the theories, practices, and dominant ideologies of a particular historical period as they have had an impact on the position of disabled people.--Simi Linton "SIGNS: JOURNAL OF WOMEN IN CULTURE & SOCIETY"

Fascinating and theoretically rich... Extraordinary Bodies will... be viewed as one of [disability studies'] foundational texts.--Anthony Hutchison "Journal of American Studies"

With this important work, Thomson not only redefines disability studies, but also makes a contribution to feminist, poststructuralist, and race theory and provides fresh rereadings of both canonical and non-canonical literary texts.--Joyce Huff "COLLEGE LITERATURE"

About the Author

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is professor of English at Emory University and the author of Staring: How We Look (2009) and the editor of Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body (1996).