French and Francophone Literature Commons^™

Silenced Voices: Situating Disability Studies In France Through The Poet Babouillec, Mira Nakhle

Senior Theses and Projects

Disability studies is a growing field of research in the US, but has been slow to take root in countries with more conservative academic structures like France. In particular, representation of the experience of life with a disability is challenged when individuals face barriers of communication or stigma about their abilities. This paper looks specifically at works by and about Babouillec, a young French poet with autism classified by her doctors as “deficient by 80%”. In exploring the implications of her work, I evaluate the ways in which the mediation of her story by those around her (in the production …