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Body Language: Representations Of Dis/Ability In Life Writing And Improvisational Dance, Jenna N. Tico

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis looks into autobiographical representations of disability and illness in life writing, a flexible form of creative nonfiction, and Contact Improvisation, a postmodern dance form, to argue how the structure of representation must incorporate the physical and emotional/intellectual in order to convey the necessary overlap between the mind and body.

Chapter One looks at Plaintext, by Nancy Mairs, to analyze the way her sporadic writing style mirrors the unpredictability of her multiple sclerosis. Chapter Two focuses on Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy, and examines how the irregularity of the author's face--and the various roles that she takes …