英文摘要 |
Disability studies, along with studies on gender, age, race, and other such classifications, has been in the making since 1970s as a new field of study to redress the social voicelessness and institutional neglect of the disabled people. Based on this study, the essay tackles Frida Kahlo's illness narrative to examine the construction of the disabled as vulnerable subject or super(wo)man subject, and by doing so, it intends to neutralize the dehumanizing effects of societal discriminations against the disabled. The essay examines Kahlo's letters, diary, and paintings to access her unique psychic lives and subjectivity, with special emphasis on her feelings of experiencing the other or the abject. Indeed, Kahlo's life writing can be also read as pathography. Her body, wounded,pierced, or distorted, however, is not only the center of agony but also the ideal place for sublimation and transcendence. The essay concludes by undermining the cultural presumption or stereotypical pinning down of the disabled as a vulnerable subject, and, instead, it highlights the uncertainty and variability of the subjectivity of people with disabilities. |