Disablism and Dwarfism in Medievalist Fantasy

我的项目分析了具有里程碑意义的奇幻文学中对侏儒的描述，认为它们对侏儒症患者的生活产生了重大影响。重复使用刻板的侏儒角色不利于许多残疾人的福祉；将侏儒描绘成幼稚、暴力和性侵犯的形象，鼓励了非残疾观众为了自己的娱乐而贬低这些发育受限的人。从中世纪的原始文本开始，通过对托尔金的巨大影响的讨论，转移到21世纪的作者，我将使用密切的语言分析来确定幻想作家向更广泛的公众传播的关于限制增长的信息的社会影响。我认为，许多奇幻小说在潜意识中宣扬了残疾主义者的态度，但同时也强调了一些例子，即作者颠覆了这些期望，以传播对残疾人经历的理解。我将主要研究托尔金的《指环王》（1954-1955）和普拉切特的《碟形世界》（1983-2015），以及威廉·莫里斯、c·s·刘易斯和艾伦·加纳等作家的一系列其他文本，将它们完全置于这一类型中。这些开创性的幻想文本是对这种类型的损害的态度的有用指示器。为了确定他们是否挑战或鼓励了体能主义的刻板印象，我会问：将侏儒作为生物和/或文化上的其他人的种族化分类提出了什么含义；对身高的精神和道德规范暗示了社会对残疾的态度；关于侏儒的性和性行为的描述传达了什么关于缺陷的信息？

My project analyses depictions of dwarfs across landmark fantasy texts, arguing that they impact significantly on the lives of people with dwarfism. The reuse of stereotypical dwarf characters is detrimental to the well-being of many impaired people; framing dwarfs as infantile, violent, and sexually aggressive encourages non-disabled audiences to dehumanise people with restricted growth for their own amusement. Beginning with medieval source texts and moving to twenty-first century authors via a discussion of Tolkien's prodigious influence, I will use close language analysis to identify the social impacts of the messages fantasy authors disseminate to the wider public about restricted growth. I argue that many fantasy texts subconsciously promote ableist attitudes but will also highlight instances where authors have subverted these expectations to spread understanding of the experiences of impaired people.I will principally study Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)) and Pratchett's Discworld (1983-2015) alongside a range of other texts by authors such as William Morris, C. S. Lewis and Alan Garner to situate them fully within the genre. These seminal fantasy texts serve as useful indicators of the attitudes towards impairment in the genre. To determine if they challenge or encourage ableist stereotypes, I will ask: what implications are raised by the racialised classification of dwarfs as biological and/or cultural others; what does the spiritual and moral codification of height suggest about social attitudes towards impairment; and what messages do the depictions of dwarfs' sex and sexuality send about impairment?