Contemporary Literature and the Body: A Critical Introduction

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Surveying the history of criticism about literature and the body, this introduction also charts trends and examines new theoretical developments in literary criticism and provides an entry point into the medical humanities, studies of affect, ageing, ecocriticism, and digital humanities. The book offers an intersectional approach to understanding identity and bodily experience and draws on a range of forms of writing from different geographical areas and disciplines, including poetry, novels, blogs, memoirs, political activism and scientific case studies. Exploring the fundamental importance of the body in the histories of feminism, gender, sexuality, disability, race and postcolonial studies, this book proves that contemporary literature provides a rich cultural history of hopes, fears, and fantasies about the body across the ages and, moreover, that criticism offers a valuable way of interpreting how certain bodies are marginalised, celebrated, exploited, spoken about or spoken for in contemporary culture. Chapters incorporate a strong activist element, arguing that the intersecting politics, ethics and aesthetics of bodily representation are important for all of us in the era of the #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and Transgender Rights movements, where bodies are photographed, tracked, manipulated and scrutinised as never before.

Reviews

As with all of Halls writing, there is a delightful activism running throughout this important book. She raises the bar on critical discussion, bringing a new alertness to the relevance of the body in literature. Tellingly, she does not overlook how literary texts themselves are kinds of bodies not to be left out in the rush to theory and critical debate * Paul Crawford, Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, UK *
This book provides an expansive overview of the many and complex ways the body has featured in literature from the nineteenth century to the present day. The contributors engage large and important themes: gender, sexuality, disability, race, affect, ageing, the environment, and issues around the digital body. This is important reading for students of literature, cultural history, body studies, and the medical humanities * Corinna Wagner, University of Exeter, UK *
A timely introduction to key aspects of how literature deals with bodies. Each chapter is focused and backs its presentation of state-of-the-art theory with readings of literary works. Together they add up to an excellent background for understanding the centrality of the body, whether it is seen through the lens of gender, affect, race, disability, aging, or the posthuman * Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, Aarhus University, Denmark *

Author Bio

Alice Hall is a Lecturer in Contemporary and Global Literature at the University of York, UK. She is the author of Disability and Modern Fiction and Literature and Disability, and is the editor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability. She co-founded the MA in Medical Humanities at York and convenes 'The Body in Modern American Literature and Culture' module.