Nabil Shaban’s Dialogue with the Non-Disabled Centre
Katarzyna Ojrzyńska (University of Lodz)
The article centres on the literary output of the Jordanian-British artist Nabil Shaban. In his texts, Shaban often rewrites various historical and popular narratives from the perspective of a person with a disability. This strategy, for instance, involves the investigation of the lives of certain historical fi gures, such as Ivar the Boneless, whom Shaban brings out of the disability closet. The concept of what may be termed „writing back to the non-disabled centre” is also conspicuous in Shaban’s rewritings of popular narratives, the best example being the parody of a zombie apocalypse narrative in the screenplay entitled Hoodies and the Crips. Taking recourse to such concepts as Julia Kristeva’s „the abject”, Barbara Creed’s „monstrous feminine” and Tobin Siebers’s „disability drag”, the article examines the subversive strategies used by Shaban in order to enter a dialogic relationship with non-disabled culture and history.
The full version of this article is available in Polish in the printed version of Tekstualia and in the on-line subscription.
The sample of Polish version of this article is available here: http://tekstualia.pl/index.php/pl/nasze-numery/295-4-51-2017/artykuly/1480-nabila-shabana-dialog-z-kultura-sprawna
