The Discourse of Disability: Indian Perspectives

This book explores the concept of disability through a social, political, cultural, religious, and economics lens. It challenges the categorization of ‘physically-disabled’ produced by way of legal, medical, political, cultural, and literary narratives that comprise an exclusionary discourse.

The volume discusses themes like disability and identity politics; disability and the western epistemology; disability in India; disability and the Indian English fiction and Hindi cinema to question the embodied hegemony of ‘norms’ and their effects in the construction and history of societies. It analyses select literary and cinematic texts like Trying to Grow, Fireproof, and Animal’s People; and movies, Black and Lafangey Parindey to critically examine the representation of disabled people as freak, monstrous and animal. The book also makes policy recommendations for inclusive education and work norms for disabled people.

This book will be beneficial for scholars and researchers of disability studies, cultural studies, film studies, and English literature.

Vivek Singh is Assistant Professor of English at Banaras Hindu University, India. He pursued his Ph.D. from the University of English and Foreign Languages, India. To pursue his research, he went to Potsdam University, Berlin, and received DAAD fellowship. He has delivered more than fifteen lectures in various reputed institutions and has published more than ten papers in international journals. His edited works include The Crisis in Humanity (2022). Currently, he works as a language instructor and cultural ambassador in Mississippi Valley State University, Mississsippi, USA.