ENGL2883 · English

Victorian Abnormalities: Disability and Illness in Victorian Literature and Culture

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

What does it mean to be "normal"? How are sick and disabled bodies constructed as "abnormal"? What are the social and cultural consequences of being abnormal? This coursewill examine the construction of norms and embodied abnormality in Victorian literature andculture. We will track Victorian literature's engagement with normality and explore how Victorian conceptions of sickness and disability became caught up with concepts of race, gender, criminality, class, sexuality, and morality. Readings will include Bram Stoker's Dracula, Charles Dickens'A Christmas Carol, William Dodd's A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd, a Factory Cripple, as well as a variety of theoretical texts.