Rethinking Images of Disability through Laura Swanson’s “Anti-Self-Portrait”

Authors

  • Carly Barnhardt Boston College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6017/eurj.v13i1.9623

Keywords:

feminist disability studies, photography, gender, representation

Abstract

This article aims to explore visual artist Laura Swanson's "anti self-portrait" as a response to the visual rhetorics of popular photography that founding disability studies scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson defines in her essay “The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography”. In responding to these visual rhetorics in her “anti-self-portrait” called Peggy Lee, Swanson resists a traditional reading of a disabled body and reclaims her identity through self-representation.   

Author Biography

Carly Barnhardt, Boston College

Carly Barnhardt will graduate from Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences in 2017 with a degree in English, a minor in American Studies with concentration in journalism, and a minor in French. She is currently writing a senior honors thesis on the poetry and memoirs of Beat-era poet Diane di Prima. She has a special interest in feminist theory, American literature, and creative nonfiction, and hopes to pursue these academic interests at the graduate level. When she is not reading or writing, you can find her in the kitchen, not following a recipe, or in the Stylus office.
Elements Spring 2017 Cover

Downloads

Published

2017-09-07

How to Cite

Barnhardt, C. (2017). Rethinking Images of Disability through Laura Swanson’s “Anti-Self-Portrait”. Elements, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.6017/eurj.v13i1.9623

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2017 Carly Barnhardt

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.