Call For Papers: Intellectual Disability in Literature

CFP: Intellectual Disability in Literature (10/01/02; collection of essays)
full name / name of organization:  John J. Han & Carol Austin
contact email:  hanjn@mobap.edu; AustinCJ@mobap.edu

Previously unpublished critical essays are being sought for a new volume
tentatively entitled Intellectual Disability in Literature: Critical
Essays. Disability studies is a rapidly emerging academic discipline, as is
evidenced by the increasing number of degree programs in disability across
the United States. An area of study within disability studies is the
representation of disability in literature. Imaginative texts are replete
with intellectually challenged characters. Novels such as Dostoyevsky’s The
Idiots, Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and O’Connor’s The Violent Bear
It Away include developmentally delayed characters. Other types of prose
also include characters called in variously disparaging terms.

Although mentally disabled characters have received some critical attention
from literary scholars, the amount of in-depth research has been sporadic.
Indeed, the intersection of intellectual disability and literature has been
the area of study mostly for specialists in disability. Intellectual
Disability in Literature aims to fill gaps by compiling academic essays on
various issues related to mental disability in literature.

The volume will consist of 15-20 critical essays which are divided into 3-5
thematic categories such as “The Function of Characters with Intellectual
Disability,” “The Representation of Intellectual Disability in Literature,”
“Portrayal of Normality versus Disability in Literary Texts,” and “Issues
of Gender, Race, and Class in Intellectual Impairments in Literature.” (The
section titles may change based on the types of papers we receive from our
contributors.)

We welcome submissions from both literary scholars and nonliterary
academics who have some background in literature and the humanities.
Interested scholars should submit a 500-word abstract and a professional
vita, as e-mail attachments, to John J. Han (hanjn_at_mobap.edu) by October
1, 2012. Deadline for completed essays of 15-20 pages is April 1, 2013. We
plan to finish editing accepted submissions by September 1, 2013. An
academic publisher in Amsterdam responded positively to our proposal and is
willing to consider the entire manuscript.

John J. Han, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Creative Writing
Missouri Baptist University
St. Louis, MO 63141-8660
(314) 392-2311
hanjn_at_mobap.edu

Carol Austin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Counseling and Human Services
Missouri Baptist University
St. Louis, MO 63141-8660
(314) 744-5324
AustinCJ_at_mobap.edu