Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores Woolf’s relationship with eugenics, illness, and disability, a relationship that is characterized by ambiguity and contradictions, and has divided the critics in their...Show moreThis thesis explores Woolf’s relationship with eugenics, illness, and disability, a relationship that is characterized by ambiguity and contradictions, and has divided the critics in their assessment of Woolf’s work in relation to disability and illness. This thesis is an intervention in this debate by analyzing how Woolf conceives of and conceptualizes notions of illness and disability. This thesis further aims to investigate whether she can be considered a proto-crip theorist. It argues that Woolf’s ambiguity and contradiction in her attitudes towards disability allow for and encourage a crip theoretical reading, and that ultimately, Woolf can certainly be called a nascent crip theorist in her rejection of bodily normativity and in her celebration of non-normative bodyminds, as well as in the ways in which she deconstructs ableist ideologies. The result is a thesis that offers us significant insights into how Woolf in particular and modernist art, literature, and culture in general, conceived of disability, but it also allows us to trace the continuities and differences between attitudes toward disability during the early twentieth century and these attitudes in the present day.Show less
The medical model defines autism as disorder and disability which includes deficits in social communication, repetitive behaviour, abnormalities in sensory processing and cognition. The definition...Show moreThe medical model defines autism as disorder and disability which includes deficits in social communication, repetitive behaviour, abnormalities in sensory processing and cognition. The definition implies a need for a cure and alleviating autistic traits. However, the medical model has been challenged by the neurodiversity model, which understands autism as a neurological difference rather than a disorder. The neurodiversity movement started in English speaking autistic online communities and aims to embrace the differences, reduce stigma and create autistic culture. This thesis aims to find out if, and in what ways, do Japanese autistic Youtubers challenge the medical model. There is a lack of studies on Japanese autistic communities, neurodiversity movement and first-person views. Ten YouTube videos made on autism by Japanese autistic or other neurodivergent people were selected for qualitative narrative analysis. While most YouTubers presented a conception similar to the medical model, they also subtly challenged it by presenting themselves as an authority on autism, showing the positive sides of autism, critiquing universal applicability of stereotypes, using labels for autism created in autistic communities and suggesting changes in the socio-cultural environment as a way to mitigate challenges. While there were no direct references to the neurodiversity movement, there has been an increase in online content made by autistic people, which enables changes in discourse in future.Show less
