Personal or Political?

Representations of Disability in Contemporary French Fiction

Haigh, Samantha

Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (2012), 6, (3), 307–325.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2012.25
Language: English
Pages: 19

Abstract

The article begins by examining recent changes in disability legislation in France, changes spearheaded, over the last decade, by the work of Julia Kristeva, who suggests that France is finally moving toward a social model of disability. Focusing on two novels—Luc Leprêtre's Club VIP: Very Invalid Person (2009) and Arnauld Pontier's Equinoxe (2006)—the article explores whether an awareness of these changes can also be discerned in contemporary French fiction. Using the recent work of Kristeva, but also that of Tom Shakespeare, Lennard Davis, and Tobin Siebers, the article explores whether it is useful to conceive of either political change or attitudinal shift in terms of "progress" from a medical to a social model, and suggests that while both writers interrogate normative perceptions of disability, they do so in more complex and nuanced ways than might initially be expected.

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