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Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Ryan Sweet Orcid Logo

Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture

Swansea University Author: Ryan Sweet Orcid Logo

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Abstract

This open access book investigates imaginaries of artificial limbs, eyes, hair, and teeth in British and American literary and cultural sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture shows how depictions of prostheses compl...

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Published in: Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
ISBN: 9783030785888 9783030785895
ISSN: 2634-6494 2634-6508
Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 2022
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59578
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Abstract: This open access book investigates imaginaries of artificial limbs, eyes, hair, and teeth in British and American literary and cultural sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture shows how depictions of prostheses complicated the contemporary bodily status quo, which increasingly demanded an appearance of physical wholeness. Revealing how representations of the prostheticized body were inflected significantly by factors such as social class, gender, and age, Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture argues that nineteenth-century prosthesis narratives, though presented in a predominantly ableist and sometimes disablist manner, challenged the dominance of physical completeness as they questioned the logic of prostheticization or presented non-normative subjects in threateningly powerful ways. Considering texts by authors including Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle alongside various cultural, medical, and commercial materials, this book provides an important reappraisal of historical attitudes to not only prostheses but also concepts of physical normalcy and difference.
Keywords: nineteenth century literature; disability in literature; prosthetics in literature; Victorian disability; Charles Dickens; Wilkie Collins; Edgar Allen Poe; Open Access; Victorian Literature; Literature, Science and Medicine Studies; Literature and Disability Studies; Novel
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: Wellcome Trust