Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure
Allan, Kathryn, editor. Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Reviewed by Jamie L. McDaniel, SFRA Review #310 (Fall 2014): pp. 43-45.[1]
The collection features a variety of scholars from literature, film, history, classics, anthropology, information sciences, and philosophy. [* * * ¶]
Allan reminds readers that “SF narratives involving people with disabilities inevitably also feature technology as either curing or attempting to contain their unruly bodies” (2). Therein lies the focus of the books’ twelve essays. This attention to treatment pervades SF to the extent that cure takes on a double meaning. Not only does cure indicate the tendency of the medical establishment to try to restore the supposed disabled body to the norm (a fully functioning healthy citizen) or to improve upon the body’s natural state through technology, but it also forces us to examine “how the cure narrative is performing in that text." (McDaniel p. 44).