CFP: Disability and Science Fiction (3/15/06; MLA '06)
CFP: Science Fiction and Disability (3/15/06; MLA '06)
For many years, the archetypal image of disability in
science fiction was Robert Heinlein's Waldo, the
embittered, reclusive, socially inept genius who, in
the eponymous story, overcomes myasthenia gravis when
an old sage reveals to him that he can cure himself
through willpower: "Gramps Schneider had told him he
need not be weak! That he could be strong – Strong!
STRONG! He had never thought of it." Since Heinlein's
1942 paean to voluntarist triumph over personal
adversity, disability and dysmorphism have had a
complex history in science fiction. From the gentle
freaks of William Tenn and Theodore Sturgeon to the