Disability Studies and Spanish Culture: Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to apply the tenets of Disability Studies to the Spanish context. In particular, this work is an important corrective to existing cultural studies of disability in Spain that tend to largely ignore intellectual disabilities. Taking on the representation of Down syndrome, autism, alexia/agnosia as well as childhood disability, its chapters combine close readings of a number of Spanish cultural products (films, novels, the comic/graphic novel and the public exhibition) with a broader socio-cultural take on the state of disability in Spain. Fraser is just as comfortable with the work of disability theorists who advocate a social model of disability (such as Lennard J. Davis, Licia Carlson, Eva Feder Kittay, David T. Mitchell, Sharon L. Snyder and more) as he is with the analysis of film and literature in the Spanish context. While researchers and students of cinema will be particularly interested in the book's detailed analyses of the formal aspects of the films, comics, and novels discussed, readers from backgrounds in history, political science and sociology will all be able to appreciate discussions of contemporary legislation, advocacy groups, cultural perceptions, models of social integration and more. The book is directed, also, toward those readers more familiar with the growing field of Disability Studies itself—making the argument that the specific case of Spanish culture and society speaks to shifts in the social attitudes and theoretical understandings of disability more broadly considered

1. Filming Down syndrome -- Yo, también (2009) and the political project of disability studies -- Deciphering the mixed messages of León y Olvido (2004) -- 2. Envisioning autism -- Muguel Gallardo's comic María y yo (2007) -- Félix Fernándex de Castro's documentary María y yo (2010) -- 3. Narrating childhood disability -- Salvador García Jiménez's novel Angelicomio (1981) -- Màrius Serra's autobiographical novel Quieto (2008) -- 4. Documenting cognitive disability -- ¿Qué tienes debajo del sombrero? (2006) by Lola Barrera and Iñaki Peñafiel -- Más allá del espejo (2007) by Joaquín Jordà -- Epilogue : exhibiting art -- 'Trazos singulares' (2001) at the Nuevos Ministerios metro station -- 'Supergestor' (2011) and other comics by the Grupo AMÁS Associación Argadini's literary contests (2008-2010).

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to explore representations of intellectual disabilities (Down syndrome, autism, alexia/agnosia) in contemporary Spanish films, novels, a graphic novel/comic and public expositions by disabled artists

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to apply the tenets of Disability Studies to the Spanish context. In particular, this work is an important corrective to existing cultural studies of disability in Spain that tend to largely ignore intellectual disabilities. Taking on the representation of Down syndrome, autism, alexia/agnosia as well as childhood disability, its chapters combine close readings of a number of Spanish cultural products (films, novels, the comic/graphic novel and the public exhibition) with a broader socio-cultural take on the state of disability in Spain. While researchers and students of cinema will be particularly interested in the book?s detailed analyses of the formal aspects of the films, comics, and novels discussed, readers from backgrounds in history, political science and sociology will all be able to appreciate discussions of contemporary legislation, advocacy groups, cultural perceptions, models of social integration and more

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to apply the tenets of Disability Studies to the Spanish context. In particular, this work is an important corrective to existing cultural studies of disability in Spain that tend to largely ignore intellectual disabilities. Taking on the representation of Down syndrome, autism, alexia/agnosia as well as childhood disability, its chapters combine close readings of a number of Spanish cultural products (films, novels, the comic/graphic novel and the public exhibition) with a broader socio-cultural take on the state of disability in Spain. While researchers and students of cinema will be particularly interested in the book's detailed analyses of the formal aspects of the films, comics, and novels discussed, readers from backgrounds in history, political science and sociology will all be able to appreciate discussions of contemporary legislation, advocacy groups, cultural perceptions, models of social integration and more.