Illness and Disability as Gothic Monstrosity: Anxious Representations
of Physical Difference

Approved Panel for NEMLA Conference, Philadelphia PA March 2-5,2006

The Gothic is marked by an anxious encounter with otherness, typically
represented in supernatural terms. The papers in this panel will
consider moments in which Gothic fear and horror is relocated onto
people who suffer illness or disability, who manifest physical or
mental difference. The trope that anchors this panel –the construction
of the subject of physical or mental illness or disability as the
Gothic monster – is like the Gothic mode in which it appears, powerful
and pervasive indeed. The mentally ill Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre,
the albino Frances Davey of Jamaica Inn and the infertile Rebecca
reveal the horror of illness and disability that lurks at the center of
the Gothic tradition. Panelists will focus on manifestations of this
trope – either in canonical works or in other examples that they
discover.

Please send abstracts/proposals of approximately 500 words to:
Ruth Anolik
ruth.anolik_at_villanova.edu

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Received on Sun Jul 17 2005 - 16:03:58 EDT