失能美學：受苦的身體、社會與長十八世紀英國視覺文化（文類：其他）

“Disability Aesthetics: The Suffering Body, Society, and British Visual Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century” examines the intersection of disability, illness, and physical suffering with visual culture in Britain from approximately 1688 to 1832. This period, shaped by Enlightenment thought, industrial and imperial expansion, and shifting medical discourses, saw the increasing visibility of disability in artistic and cultural production. Through portraiture, caricature, print culture, and satirical engravings, British artists reflected and reinforced contemporary attitudes toward bodily difference, often framing the disabled body within narratives of moral, social, and economic value. At the heart of this course is the concept of disability aesthetics, which challenges traditional notions of beauty and deformity, questioning how bodily difference is rendered within artistic forms. By situating disability within the broader artistic movements of the period—such as the Rococo, Neoclassicism, and the rise of political satire—we will explore how visual representations of suffering bodies functioned within medical, moral, and colonial discourses. From William Hogarth’s grotesque yet socially charged engravings to the idealized yet politically fraught portraiture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, students will critically examine how disability was depicted, commodified, and politicized in the visual arts. This course integrates insights from disability studies, art history, postcolonial theory, and eighteenth-century cultural studies, offering an interdisciplinary framework for understanding how visual representations of disability shaped, and were shaped by, contemporary anxieties about health, identity, class, gender, and race. Students will engage with foundational theoretical texts and primary sources—including medical treatises, satirical prints, and literary accounts—assessing how the suffering body was perceived and positioned within the aesthetics of the long eighteenth century. By the end of this course, students will have developed a critical awareness of how disability functions as an aesthetic category, interrogating its role in constructing notions of normality, otherness, and artistic value in British visual culture. 「失能美學：受苦的身體、社會與長十八世紀英國視覺文化」探討失能、疾病與身體苦難如何與英國約1688年至1832年間的視覺文化交匯。此一時期受啟蒙思想、工業與帝國擴張以及醫學話語轉變的影響，失能在藝術與文化生產中的能見度日益提升。透過肖像畫、諷刺畫、版畫文化與諷刺版刻，英國藝術家反映並強化了當時對身體差異的態度，常常將失能身體置於道德、社會與經濟價值的敘述框架之中。本課程的核心概念為「失能美學」，此一概念挑戰傳統美與畸形的界定，並質疑身體差異在藝術形式中的呈現方式。藉由將失能置於當時的藝術運動脈絡之中——如洛可可、新古典主義與政治諷刺的興起——本課程將探討受苦之身體的視覺再現如何在醫學、道德與殖民話語中運作。從威廉·賀加斯兼具怪誕與社會批判性的版刻，到約書亞·雷諾茲爵士理想化卻充滿政治意涵的肖像畫，學生將深入分析失能如何在視覺藝術中被描繪、商品化與政治化。本課程融入失能研究、藝術史、後殖民理論與十八世紀文化研究的觀點，提供跨學科的框架，以理解失能的視覺再現如何塑造並受到當時健康、身份、階級、性別與種族焦慮的影響。學生將閱讀重要的理論文本與一手史料，包括醫學論述、諷刺版畫與文學記述，以評估受苦之身體在長十八世紀美學中的認知與定位。課程結束後，學生將培養對失能作為美學範疇的批判意識，並探究其在英國視覺文化中如何建構正常性、他者性與藝術價值。 Key Themes and Learning Outcomes: 1. Understanding Disability Aesthetics: Students will gain an understanding of disability aesthetics, examining how disability functions as an aesthetic category that challenges conventional notions of beauty and representation. 2. Historical Context of Disability: We will study eighteenth-century medical and societal attitudes toward illness, exploring how disability intersects with contemporary debates on morality, citizenship, and economic productivity. 3. Visual Culture and Social Identity: Through analyzing artworks from portraiture to caricature, students will investigate how artists conveyed societal views on bodily differences and suffering. We will focus on the interplay of class, gender, and race within these visual depictions. 4. Interdisciplinary Critique: Incorporating insights from disability studies, postcolonial theory, and art history, this course encourages students to develop a nuanced, critical perspective on representations of disability and the suffering body. 關鍵主題與學習成果： 1. 理解失能美學：學生將學習並理解失能美學的概念，探討失能如何作為一種美學範疇，挑戰傳統的美感與再現觀念。 2. 失能的歷史脈絡：我們將研究十八世紀的醫學與社會對疾病的態度，探討失能如何與當時關於道德、公民身份與經濟生產力的論述交織。 3. 視覺文化與社會身份：透過分析從肖像畫到諷刺畫等藝術作品，學生將探討藝術家如何呈現社會對身體差異與苦難的觀點，並特別關注階級、性別與種族在這些視覺再現中的交互作用。 4. 跨學科批判分析：本課程融入失能研究、後殖民理論與藝術史的觀點，鼓勵學生發展細緻且批判性的視角，以探討失能與受苦之身體在視覺文化中的表現方式。

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• Attendance and Class Participation (20%) Active engagement in class discussions and regular attendance are essential for cultivating a dynamic and productive learning environment. • Weekly Oral Responses (10%) Students are expected to deliver short oral reflections (10-15 minutes) based on the assigned readings. These responses are designed to foster engagement, sharpen critical analysis, and encourage active dialogue. • Midterm Presentation (20%): An analysis of an artwork or a thematic discussion on a selected reading. • Final term paper (50%): A research paper (3000-4000 words) analysing an aspect of disability aesthetics in eighteenth-century British visual culture.

Adams, Rachel, Benjamin Reiss and David Serlin, ed. Keywords for Disability Studies. New York and London: New York University Press, 2015. Print. Barker, Clare, and Stuart Murray. “Disabling Postcolonialism: Global Disability Cultures and Democratic Criticism.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 4.3 (2010): 219-36. Print. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. 2018. Craton, Lillian. The Victorian Freak Show: The Significance of Disability and Physical Differences in 19th-Century Fiction. Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2009. Print. Davis, Lennard J. “Constructing Normalcy: The Bell Curve, the Novel, and the Invention of the Disabled Body in the Nineteenth Century.” Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics. Ed. Obasogie, Osagie K., and Marcy Darnovsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. 63-72. Print. Durbach, Nadja. The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009. Print. Flores, Tatiana, Florencia San Martín, and Charlene Villaseñor Black, ed. The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. Print. Gabbard, D. Christopher, and Susannah B. Mintz, ed. A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century. New York: Bloomsbury 2022. Print. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography.” Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. Ed. Snyder, S. L., B. J. Brueggemann, and R. G. Thomson. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002. Print. ---. Staring: How We Look. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. Goodley, Dan. Dis/Ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2014. Print. The Greatest Showman. 2017. Hadley, Bree, and Donna McDonald, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Disability Arts, Culture, and Media. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. Print. Hammer, K. Allison “Masculinity and Disability in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.” The Routledge Companion to Art and Disability. Ed. Watson, Keri, and Timothy W. Hiles. New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2022. 264-82 Print. Lee, Elizabeth. “Charles Lang Freer: Collecting the Disabled Body.” The Routledge Companion to Art and Disability. Ed. Watson, Keri, and Timothy W. Hiles. New York: Routledge, 2022. 204-23. Print. Millett-Gallant, Ann, and Elizabeth Howie, ed. Disability and Art History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Oxon: Routledge, 2022. Print. Mounsey, Chris, ed. The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2014. Print. Siebers, Tobin. Disability Aesthetics. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010. Print. ---. Disability Theory. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008. Print. Turner, David M. Disability in Eighteenth-Century England: Imagining Physical Impairment. New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2012. Print. 安伯托．艾可（Umberto Eco）《醜的歷史》（History of Ugliness）.台北市: 聯經, 2028. Print. 孫小玉, 《失能研究與生命書寫》 (高雄市: 國立中山大學出版社, 2014). ———, 《雨後霓虹：失能者的生命故事》 (高雄市: 國立中山大學出版社, 2021). ———, 《裂縫中的未來：批判性失能研究的理論實踐與典範轉移》 (臺北市: 書林, 2025).

地點

人社三館R410

時間

By appointment

聯絡方式

kchiu@nycu.edu.tw