Narrative Prosthesis

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How disability becomes a narrative prop or cliche in literature instead of being recognized as part of human experience.

Disability Studies: This topic is essential when learning about narrative prosthesis. It focuses on the social, cultural, and political aspects of disability, including how people with disabilities are represented in literature.
Representation: This topic encompasses how people with disabilities are portrayed in literature, film, and other media. It also looks at the language and terminology used to describe disability.
Narrative: This topic explores the structure of a narrative, including how it is sequenced, how characters are developed, and how the story is told.
Prosthesis: This topic centers on the use of body extensions and technology to enhance human abilities. It also looks at the way physical disabilities are addressed through technology.
Intersectionality: This topic looks at the ways different social identity markers intersect to shape a person's experiences and perspectives. It is essential to consider when exploring disability in literature.
Stigma: This topic addresses the negative attitudes people with disabilities face and how it influences their representation in literature and culture.
Empowerment: This topic looks at how literature can be used to empower people with disabilities and promote social change.
Access: This topic encompasses both physical and social aspects of access, including barriers to participation and inclusion.
Marginalization: This topic looks at the ways people with disabilities are excluded from mainstream society and how it affects their representation in literature.
Identity: This topic explores how people with disabilities understand and construct their identities and how they are portrayed in literature.
Tokenism: Tokenism refers to the inclusion of one or a few disabled characters in a detailed narrative that is primarily focused on non-disabled characters.
Tragic Disabled Hero: A narrative that portrays a disabled character as heroic because of their disability, but the story ultimately leads to the character's tragic ending.
Magical Cures or Fixes: This type of narrative prosthesis portrays disability as an anomaly or temporary condition that can be remedied by a magical cure, technology, or surgery.
Disability as Metaphor: Disability is used as a literary device to convey deeper themes, often not related to disability, and signals a negative or positive quality to the character or situation.
Disability as the Ultimate Bad Guy: Disability as a symbol of evil, illness, and death is often portrayed through disabled villains in literature.
SuperCrip: A character that is disabled and possesses extraordinary abilities or talents, often beyond those of non-disabled characters.
Disability as an Embodiment of Punishment: A character is portrayed as flawed or evil because of their disability, and it becomes the source of their punishment.
Inspirational Porn: A story that commodifies disability and portrays a disabled person as a source of inspiration to non-disabled people.
Authentic Voice: A disabled narrator who speaks with an authoritative voice, highlighting the experience of disability from an insider's perspective.
Absence of Disability: A literary world that is devoid of disability, which creates a normative reading experience that privileges the able-bodied over the disabled.
"Disability in the arts is an aspect within various arts disciplines of inclusive practices involving disability. It manifests itself in the output and mission of some stage and modern dance performing-arts companies, and as the subject matter of individual works of art."
"Disability in the arts is distinguished from disability art in that it refers to art that includes people with disabilities, whether in themes, performance, or the creation of the artwork, rather than works focusing on disability as the central theme."
"It can also refer to work that is made as a political act toward shaping a new community, fostering disability culture."
"Disability culture is the difference between being alone, isolated, and individuated with a physical, cognitive, emotional, or sensory difference that in our society invites discrimination and reinforces that isolation – the difference between all that and being in community."
"Naming oneself part of a larger group, a social movement or a subject position in modernity can help to focus energy and to understand that solidarity can be found – precariously, in improvisation, always on the verge of collapse."
"People with disabilities sometimes participate in artistic activities as part of expressive therapy (also known as 'expressive arts therapy' or 'creative arts therapy')."
"Expressive therapy may take the form of writing therapy, music therapy, drama therapy, or another artistic method."
"While creativity and artistic expression are parts of expressive therapy, they are secondary to the goal of achieving a therapeutic benefit."
"This article describes disability in the arts where artistic achievement is the primary goal."