Signifying Bodies - 9780472050697

Signifying BodiesDisability in Contemporary Life Writing\nAuthor(s): G. Thomas Couser\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: The University of Michigan Press, United States\nImprint: The University of Michigan Press\nISBN-13: 9780472050697, 978-0472050697\nSynopsis\n\""Thomas Couser's Signifying Bodies comes at a crucial moment when debates about physician assisted suicide, genetic engineering, and neo-natal screening are raising the question of what constitutes a 'life worth living' for persons with disabilities. Couser's work engages these debates by exploring the extensive number of personal narratives by or about persons with disabilities. As Couser brilliantly demonstrates through synoptic readings, these works challenge the 'preferred rhetorics' by which such narratives are usually written (triumphalist, gothic, nostalgic) while making visible the variegated nature of embodied life.\"" ---Michael Davidson, University of California, San Diego \""Signifying Bodies shows us that life writin.