Cluster of short stories and vignettes exploring caring, disability and chronic illness
- Submitting institution
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The University of Lancaster
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 280841116
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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-
- Location
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- Brief description of type
- Cluster of short stories and vignettes
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- December
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This cluster of short stories and vignettes explores caring, disability and chronic illness. It emerges out of Lambert’s research interest in caring as a form of invisible or unrecognized labour. Her work explores the complexity of familial relationships involved in caring roles. Grounded in the social model of disability, in which current research has explored how narratives about caring that foreground caring as a burden and only celebrate carers’ abilities to cope with this burden can end up reinforcing the trope of disability as tragedy. Instead, Lambert’s stories explore the complexity of caring roles particularly in mother/daughter relationships, the interdependency and value that can be had in small moments of humour, love, and connection, as well as investigating the difficult emotions and damaging impact of care. They also highlight the (usually unpaid) labour involved. Writing from several perspectives, these stories attempt to not ‘other’ those who are cared for and include stories written from the viewpoints of the person with a disability or chronic illness and allow space for the unspeakable emotions involved.
In ‘Because There Are No Deaf Disney Princesses’ (Spring 2019 here: https://www.confingopublishing.uk/product-page/c%C5%8Dnfing%C5%8D-11-uk), Lambert explores a teenager’s jealousy of her sister's care. In ‘She’s Lost Control’ (6.9.2018)—inspired by Joy Division—a woman fights overbearing maternal care. The sequence of vignettes ‘So That’s the Tale’ (1.4.2020) is drawn from Lambert’s own experiences of care. She uses images or what Roland Barthes calls ‘punctum’ to explore the daily life or ‘studium’ of care. The form of a sequence of vignettes offers no endpoint or telos to the story of chronic illness and care. In the ekphratic story, ‘Chaconne in G Minor’ (1.9.2016) the grieving narrator in a difficult co-dependent relationship is unmoored in a continual state of disharmony, which further complicates death as a narrative end point.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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