Mermaid Without a Tale: Disability, Sexuality, and the Limits of Discourse in Italian Narrative (1975-2009)
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Mermaid Without a Tale: Disability, Sexuality, and the Limits of Discourse in Italian Narrative (1975-2009) by Katherine Jeanne Noson A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Barbara Spackman, Chair Professor Albert Ascoli Professor Mia Fuller Professor Susan Schweik Spring 2015 Abstract Mermaid Without a Tale: Disability, Sexuality, and the Limits of Discourse in Italian Narrative (1975-2009) by Katherine Jeanne Noson Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory University of California, Berkeley Professor Barbara Spackman, Chair Disability as a category of critical discourse and literary critique is only just beginning to find its way to Italian literary and cultural studies. As such, the depths of the newly forming field of Italian disability studies are as yet largely unplumbed – a vast and uncharted sea of hermeneutic possibilities. Rather than offer a diachronic survey of texts, however, this dissertation seeks to untie a series of theoretical knots that characterize representations of the disabled body in recent and contemporary Italian literature, with regards to the relationship between disability, gender, sexuality, and discursive practices. Drawing from Robert McRuer’s “crip theory” and the notion that the disabled body is always already to a certain extent a queer body, I argue that instances of disability in modern Italian narratives inherently act to challenge normative conventions of gender and sexuality. At the same time, alternative embodiments lead to unconventional reading, writing, and speaking practices, a fact which has profound implications for the study of narrative more broadly. The material quality of such practices, so often disavowed or forgotten, is undeniable in the case of the texts examined here, causing the relationships between reader, text, character, and author to be reconfigured. At the same time, the role of voice in narrative undergoes a series of transformations throughout the dissertation, at times problematic and at others liberatory. In Chapter One, I argue that by writing in the place of speech, the deaf protagonist of Dacia Maraini’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (1990) challenges the primacy of the spoken over the written word in Western culture, representing a “language of the body” that is profoundly different from the female symbolic theorized by feminist critics and philosophers. Where scholarship on Maraini’s novel has interpreted Marianna’s deafness and muteness as a metaphor for the silencing of women in a patriarchal order, I maintain that such readings close down fruitful possibilities for interpretation on the basis of disability. Through an exploration of Marianna’s alternative modes of communication, I contend that silence need not be synonymous with an absence of communication, just as text need not signify bodily absence. 1 Chapter Two draws on the shared history of disabled and gendered others, reminding readers that the disabled body and the female body are often discursively rendered as similarly “lacking,” linking them in reciprocal relation. To illustrate the point, I read Maraini’s Donna in guerra (1975) alongside Gabriele Pedullà’s short story, “Miranda” (2009), proposing “literary transability” as an interpretive frame by which to understand instances where “able-bodied” characters simulate disability as a means to escape gendered norms: here, the disabled body is made use of as an icon of deviance that opens the way towards other corporeal transgressions. In both cases, such transgressions are made possible vis-à-vis non-normative discursive practices that are inseparable from disabled corporeal difference, though in the final instance, the disabled bodies and subjects themselves are removed from the scene. Chapter Three argues that the practice of collaborative writing in Stefano Benni’s Achille piè veloce (2003) simultaneously both allows for and appropriates Achille’s authority as a disabled writer, suggesting a more reciprocal relationship than those explored in Chapter Two. Achille’s writing favors process over product, a view that parallels his emphasis on sexual enjoyment over completion, short-circuiting conventions of writing, publishing, and masculine sexuality. He, too, is erased from the final pages of the novel, however, in an example of what David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder have termed “narrative prosthesis.” Finally, in Chapter Four, I turn to a reading of autobiographical texts by disabled women authors, each of whom use the figure of the sirena – the siren or mermaid – in order to represent themselves. The subjects analyzed in this chapter each grapple in different ways with the relationship between mind and body, staged upon the partially human body of the mermaid. The mermaid’s coda, as stand-in for both the phallus and the writing pen, reveals a hybridity that bridges gender categories, as well as those of human and animal, oral and written, disabled and non-disabled. Drawing parallels to medical literature on the surgical treatment of the condition “sirenomelia” (fused legs), I argue that the insistence upon the separation of the mermaid's legs combines heteronormative fantasies of controlling the monstrous female body with the normalizing imperatives of medical cure, illustrating the extent to which ableist ideologies undergird and reinforce normative expectations regarding gender and sexuality, and vice versa. While the first two texts discussed in this chapter confirm a conception of disability and feminine sexuality as incompatible, Barbara Garlaschelli’s Sirena: Mezzo pesante in movimento (2001) suggests an integration of the two categories that is effected through the writing of the text itself. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction. Disability Studies and the Italian Context iv Chapter One. “Mutola com’è”: Dacia Maraini’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa and the Problem with Finding One’s Voice 1 Chapter Two. Seeking Transabled Knowledge: Dis-simulation as Gender Transgression in Dacia Maraini’s Donna in Guerra and Gabriele Pedullà’s “Miranda” 40 Chapter Three. From Pharmakon to Phantom Limb: (Over)writing Disability in Stefano Benni’s Achille piè veloce 81 Chapter Four. Sirena senza coda and Other Tales: The Siren-Mermaid as Figure for Disability from Dante to Garlaschelli 117 Bibliography 164 i Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the many mentors, friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have offered their guidance and support through the years. I have been extremely fortunate to work with a remarkable group of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. In particular, the members of my committee have been exceptionally generous with their feedback, advice and time, shepherding me through the more challenging moments while allowing me the freedom to shape my own projects and follow my vision from the beginning. First and foremost, my profoundest thanks to my dissertation chair and advisor, Barbara Spackman, whose incisive intellect and scholarly engagement have been an extraordinary model for my own research, teaching, writing, and formation as a scholar of Italian Studies. I am incredibly honored to have learned from such an outstanding guide over these last eight years. A heartfelt thanks as well to Albert Ascoli for lending his breadth of knowledge, a knack for probing questions, and a transhistorical perspective to my work. Many thanks to Mia Fuller for offering a level of support, both professional and personal, that has made a huge contribution to my conception of what is possible in the field. And to Susan Schweik, who introduced me to so much of the scholarship that has been instrumental to my work in disability studies and who has shown a level of commitment, rigor, generosity, and warmth that never ceases to astound me, I am forever grateful. A huge thank you as well to the staff of the Italian Studies department for their tireless efforts, especially Moriah Van Vleet who has made the impossible possible time and again, right up to the very end. The author interviews conducted for Chapter Four would not have been possible without a dissertation fellowship from the UC Berkeley Institute for European Studies, for which I am very grateful. Beyond the walls of Berkeley, I would like to thank Michael Bérubé for his incredible generosity and inspiring wit, and for our delightfully rich discussions at the School of Criticism and Theory, many of which shaped the theoretical directions of this dissertation. In Italy, the Centro Documentazione Handicap of Bologna has been an ongoing source of ideas, texts, and connections, for which I wish to thank especially Giovanna Di Pasquale. I am grateful as well for the tireless brainstorming and recommendations of Paolo Schena and Elisa Genghini, who helped me to find many of the texts I have worked on over the years. I want to acknowledge as well my undergraduate advisor, Jonathan Lee, who first introduced me to the world of philosophy and whose guidance led me to the first iteration of many of the ideas that find their culmination here. I would also like to express my profound gratitude for the wonderful group of graduate students and friends I have been fortunate to learn alongside in the department of Italian Studies at Berkeley. To those who came before me and offered advice and wisdom, I can’t thank you enough, especially Stephanie Hom, Jonathan Combs-Schilling, Scott Millspaugh, Anthony Martire, Rebecca Falkoff, Rhiannon Welch, and Janaya Lasker-Ferretti. My dear friends and partners in interdisciplinarity, Greg Bonetti, Ramsey McGlazer, Julia Nelsen, and Diana Thow, you all inspire me and keep me going. Thanks to Marina Romani and Rossella Carbotti for always helping me to stay grounded. And to Chris Atwood, Sole Anatrone, and Leslie Elwell, words cannot describe the depth of my gratitude for all you have given me and shared with me through this process.