Epilepsy Metaphors: Liminal Spaces of Individuation in American Literature, 1990-2015 (Lettre)

Between 1990 and 2015, American literature saw the emergence of a new corpus of epilepsy metaphors which tackle the stigma of epilepsy within three areas: society, body, and language. Eleana Vaja introduces concepts such as protometaphors, relational metaphors, epileptic texts, and metastability to categorize and examine these foci further. Applying philosophy as well as "hard sciences" (i.e. mathematics, medicine, physics) to disability studies, her study of selected works by Siri Hustvedt, Thom Jones, Reif Larsen, Dennis Mahagin, Audrey Niffenegger, Rodman Philbrick, and Lauren Slater shows how epilepsy metaphors redefine the notion of the "liminal" and the "normal". Between 1990 and 2015, American literature saw the emergence of a new corpus of epilepsy metaphors which tackle the stigma of epilepsy within three areas: society, body, and language. Eleana Vaja introduces concepts such as protometaphors, relational metaphors, epileptic texts, and metastability to categorize and examine these foci further. Applying philosophy as well as "hard sciences" (i.e. mathematics, medicine, physics) to disability studies, her study of selected works by Siri Hustvedt, Thom Jones, Reif Larsen, Dennis Mahagin, Audrey Niffenegger, Rodman Philbrick, and Lauren Slater shows how epilepsy metaphors redefine the notion of the "liminal" and the "normal". Cover 1 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 10 I. The Folklore of Epilepsy 20 I.A Falling Asleep: The Stigma of Epilepsy in History 22 I.B American Literature: From Stigma to Metaphor? 40 I.C Ableist Metaphors: Historical Motifs and Normalcy 56 II. Liminal Spaces of Individuation 68 II.A Jürgen Link and Michel Foucault: Symptomatic Signification of Proto- and Flexmetaphors 70 II.B George Canguilhem: Vital Materiality and Relational Metaphors 82 II.C Gilbert Simondon: Transindividual Metastability and Conceptual Metaphors 96 III. Epilepsy Metaphors in American Literature (1990–2015) 114 III.A Metaphor and Society: Proto- and Flexmetaphors and Calculated Individuation 116 III.B Metaphor and Materiality: The Relational Body and Its Electric Individuation 158 III.C Metaphor and Idioms: Siri Hustvedt’s Metastable Rhetoric as Transindividuation 192 Conclusion 236 Bibliography 240 American,Literature;,Conceptual,Metaphors;,Metastability;,Normativity;,Siri,Hustvedt;,Literature;,Body;,Medicine;,American,Studies;,Disability,Studies;,Literary,Studies American Literature,Conceptual Metaphors,Metastability,Normativity,Siri Hustvedt,Literature,Body,Medicine,American Studies,Disability Studies,Literary Studies La 4e de couverture indique: "Between 1990 and 2015, American literature saw the emergence of a new corpus of epilepsy metaphors which tackle the stigma of epilepsy within three areas: society, body, and language. Eleana Vaja introduces concepts such as protometaphors, relational metaphors, epileptic texts, and metastability to categorize and examine these foci further. Applying philosophy as well as "hard sciences" (i.e. mathematics, medicine, physics) to disability studies, her study of selected works by Siri Hustvedt, Thom Jones, Reif Larsen, Dennis Mahagin, Audrey Niffenegger, Rodman Philbrick, and Lauren Slater shows how epilepsy metaphors redefine the notion of the "liminal" and the "normal"." From 1990 through 2015, American literature saw the emergence of a new corpus of epilepsy metaphors that tackle the stigma of epilepsy within three areas: society, body, and language. Eleana Vaja introduces concepts such as protometaphors, relational metaphors, epileptic texts, and metastability to categorize and examine these foci further. Applying philosophy as well as "hard sciences" (i.e., mathematics, medicine, physics) to disability studies, her study of selected works by Siri Hustvedt, Thom Jones, Reif Larsen, Dennis Mahagin, Audrey Niffenegger, Rodman Philbrick, and Lauren Slater shows how epilepsy metaphors redefine the notion of the "liminal" and the "normal."