Complicating the semiotics of loss: Gender, power, and amputation narratives

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

Focusing on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century accounts of non-medical amputation in literary and cinematic narratives, this chapter, through a focus on embodiment and affect, explores the cultural and political—and often gendered—signification of corporeal dismemberment. Distancing itself from a psychoanalytic reading of amputation, it moves toward a politicized, historical, and specifically gendered reading, examining amputation as an expression and contestation of social values and hierarchies. Examining W. C. Morrow’s “His Unconquerable Enemy” (1889), Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Case of Lady Sannox” (1894), and the silent feature The Unknown (1927), the chapter shows how concerns of power, control, and gender are intricately linked in these amputation narratives.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAmputation in Literature and Film
Subtitle of host publicationPhantom Limbs, Prosthetic Relations, and the Semiotics of "Loss"
EditorsErik Grayson, Maren Scheurer
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Chapter3
Pages43-59
Number of pages17
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9783030743772
ISBN (Print)9783030743765, 9783030743796
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Aug 2021

Publication series

NameLiterary Disability Studies
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
ISSN (Print)2947-7409
ISSN (Electronic)2947-7417

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