Sensational Dependence: Prosthesis and Affect in Dickens and Braddon

Citation

Ferguson C (2008) Sensational Dependence: Prosthesis and Affect in Dickens and Braddon. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 19 (1), pp. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/10436920701884688

Abstract
This essay takes up three questions crucial to both the mid-Victorian sensation fiction debate and contemporary literature-based Disability Studies scholarship. What types of bodies does or should literature require of both its readers and characters? What sets of physical abilities, sensory aptitudes, and somatic experiences do differing fictional genres imagine as the requisites for their extra-textual audience's, and inter-textual characters', interface with text? Finally, how might we begin to understand the implications of these imagined connections for surrounding attitudes towards disability and dependence?

Journal
LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory: Volume 19, Issue 1