“Do Bodies Matter? Wasted Lives in Contemporary Literature: An Introduction”

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by

Noelia Muñoz
in ,
  • Journal: European Journal of English Studies
  • Year: 2025
  • vol. 29
  • Pages: 1-9

Summary

The title of this issue, “Wasted Lives in Contemporary Fiction: Bodies That Do Not Matter,” is inspired by that of Judith Butler’s seminal work Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993) where she discusses theories of gender that focus on the material dimensions of bodies. Similarly, the power of heteronormativity over bodies is contested and she develops her theory of gender performativity that was first introduced in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). However, this volume goes further into the issue of bodies and their materialities by taking as a starting-point theories of vulnerability and resistance to analyse all kinds of bodies that can be considered ‘othered’ through the lens of theories on wasted lives and stigma. The aim of this special issue is to approach the study of those bodies and identities that have little or no value in our contemporary societies in categories that refer to gender and sexuality, and also to poverty, migration, disability, or disease. The articles included in this collection cover the questions described above and analyse bodies and identities under these theoretical frames that define them as wasted and disposable, denying their humanity in literary and visual representations.