Metanarratives of Disability

This book explores multiple metanarratives of disability to introduce and investigate the critical concept of assumed authority and the normative social order from which it derives.

The book comprises 15 chapters developed across three parts and, informed by disability studies, is authored by those with research interests in the condition on which they focus as well as direct or intimate experiential knowledge. When out and about, many disabled people know only too well what it is to be erroneously told the error of our/their ways by non-disabled passers-by, assumed authority often cloaked in helpfulness. Showing that assumed authority is underpinned by a displacement of personal narratives in favour of overarching metanarratives of disability that find currency in a diverse multiplicity of cultural representations – ranging from literature to film, television, advertising, social media, comics, art, and music – this work discusses how this relates to a range of disabilities and chronic conditions, including blindness, autism, Down syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and HIV and AIDS.


Metanarratives of Disability will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, medical sociology, medical humanities, education studies, cultural studies, and health.

'offers a well-structured, accessible collection of disability narratives that foreground disabled voices' Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 16.1 (2022)