A tidbit on Monsters

[capriuni]

Thanks to spiralsheep for linking me to the thesis (in the form of a Google-cached HTML of a .PDF file) in which I found this tidbit:

(quote)

According to Isidore of Seville [aside: Seventh Century], one of the earliest authors writing about monsters, monstrosity takes the following forms and can be classified accordingly:

(1) hypertrophy of the body, (2) atrophy of the body, (3) excrescence of bodily parts, (4) superfluity of bodily parts, (5) deprivation of parts, (6) mixture of human and animal parts, (7) animal births by human women, (8) mislocation of organs or parts in the body, (9) disturbed growth (being born old), (10) composite beings, (11) hermaphrodites, (12) monstrous races

(unquote)

So. That's interesting. Based on that list, I wasn't far off the mark, after all, when the thought clicked into being that the medical establishment treats disabled people like monsters, was I?

ETA: a link to the whole thesis (monstrously long url): When a Knight meets a Dragon Maiden: Human Identity and the Monstrous Animal Other

(And now, I've got "When a body meets a body coming through the rye" running around in my head...)

Comments

[spiralsheep]

I'm glad you found something useful/interesting in there. I'd forgotten "hermaphrodites" were "monstrous".

[capriuni]

Oh, yes. Always something useful (though what the something is useful for is always up for debate, too).

I'd forgotten that "hermaphrodites" were "monstrous".

Mrs. Humph, I thought you knew: anyone and anything that the People in Charge can't wrap their minds around is a monster (remember that fractals were originally called "mathematical monsters").

I probably won't read all 141 pages, but I am looking forward to chapter 3. Here are the subject headings for that chapter:

The Monster Challenges Boundaries
Monster Questions Man-Made Classifications of Order
The Monster Creates Anxiety
The Monster’s Role in Identity Formations
It is All About the Human [< - voice inside my head, on this one: "Oh, of course it is, just like in modern Rom-Coms, it's all about the man (Boy gets girl; boy loses girl...)]

[spiralsheep]

though what the something is useful for is always up for debate

Compost for the brain.

I thought you knew: anyone and anything that the People in Charge can't wrap their minds around is a monster

Yes, although in my more cynical moments I suspect "anyone and anything that TPTB can't fuck within their kyriarchal paradigm, without a loss of status, is a monster" (they claim it's All About Reproduction but it's rly All About The Status Of The Kyriarch On Top).

The Monster Challenges Boundaries
The Monster Questions Man-Made Classifications of Order
The Monster Creates Anxiety
The Monster’s Role in Identity Formations

I now want to write this poem sequence, especially the first and third titles.

[capriuni]

Ooh, good idea! Shall we do it as a meme, or rather as a challenge -- sort of like "dueling banjos," but with versification, instead?

[spiralsheep]

I'm not sure precisely what you have in mind but the answer is "yes" to any challenge/co-operation with the proviso that I realised this evening that I have the beginning of a virus and am therefore unlikely to feel inspired to be creative until I recover (I'm mostly planning to sit around reading and lay around sleeping for the next few days, only stirring myself to boil the kettle, heh).

[capriuni]

Oh, dear. I hate that "realize I'm coming down with a virus, DAMN IT!" feeling (usually after a period of "Oh, no, you daren't!" discussion with my body).

And no time frame, anyway, but what I was imaging was this: we each write the poems as we imagine them in the cycle, independently, and then, when they are each to our satisfaction, trade them, or post them together or... something...

[spiralsheep]

I'm confused about whether I had a quickie virus, the beginnings of a virus that hasn't taken hold yet, or a sudden and overwhelming bout of hayfever (we've had three days of spring and I walked to the supermarket last night).

Yes, write!

[capriuni]

Yes, write!

You know, I'm not entirely convinced that the student who wrote this thesis is an above average scholar -- many of her sentences are missing connecting words like "the" and "to," and there are enough mismatches between noun and verb that lead me to believe her thinking just might be as sloppy as her writing. But she has introduced me to two areas of literary theory that I didn't even know existed: Monster Theory and Animal Theory (Though I think the latter may in fact be mostly an Ethics theory), and that's what I'm finding exciting.

As I read her paraphrases of published scholars in each of these fields, I kept seeing echoes of what I've experienced as a disabled person in society. And for a brief moment or two, as I was toddling toward bed, I entertained the fantasy of going back to school and writing my own Master's or Doctoral Thesis that combines Monster, Animal and Disability Theory (though these fantasies also involved a genie granting all the money I'd need, so I wouldn't incur any more debt than I already have, so it's not like they were serious). Then, I imagined all the personal and professional politics of the University World, and the fantasy quickly tarnished.

Then, I had a realization: Juxtaposing different ideas in new ways is precisely what fiction and poetry are for!!. And that's what I do... So:

Yes, I will write!

[spiralsheep]

Well, I'm not entirely convinced that original thought and following arbitrary linguistic rules are connected especially closely. ;-P

I've written two passable poems and a didactic-style fairytale (that I dislike but I allow that someone might like it). Do you have a preference for whether I post them sooner or later? I don't want you to feel obliged to read them too soon if it might interfere with your creative processes. Although the thought of presenting you with at least the best poem as an April 1st gift does mildly amuse me (a monstrously foolish April fish!). I should probably also add that only one of them, so far, is overtly about disability (although they all are to me, they're probably oblique enough to be read as about the Oppression de Jour).

[capriuni]

I actually haven't started writing anything, yet, beyond muttering potential sonnet quatrains to myself while going around in circles, looking for my glasses, coffee mug, pen, Grabber-thingy, cooking pot lid... (In short, there's a reason I was inspired to swap out my default icon -- that, and my recent radical, haircut, which makes that portrait out of date).

I'm planning on making poem one in the series today's project, though.

[spiralsheep]

And now I'm reading the thesis I've noticed it either wasn't originally written in English or the author appears to be writing outside her first language (and presemably that of her advisors).

[capriuni]

Ah... That would explain it, quite well and reasonably, as a matter of fact.

And this is a reply to your previous reply:

And while I'm not a hard stickler for proper grammar and sentence structure, I was taught Old School writing (from the age 13 on, or so), that the writer's main job was to make the reader her first consideration: are you being clear, what assumptions are you making about the reader's core knowledge, are those assumptions fair? And so on.

So when a writer (presuming she's writing in her first language) routinely fails to go back and check whether or not the beginning of a sentence matches the end of the sentence, and appears to be rushing to her conclusion, I begin to wonder if she's treating her central argument in the same way.

If she's not writing in her home language, then I can adjust my own thinking to work in the fact that different grammar structure thought differently.