seeing

One of the main questions we have to ask when thinking about mental disability in relation to “physical” disability is the dichotomy of invisibility and visibility.  I use the term “physical” loosely because more and more studies are finding that mental illness is a result of physical abnormalities in the brain and that it, too, is bodily.  Nonetheless, mental illness is often something we can’t see.  It can alter one’s behavior and mood, but these things aren’t quite as tangible as an actual disfiguration of the body’s surface

Below are a list of questions I hope to explore throughout the semester that concern the relations among disability studies, mental illness, and literature: