Living and working with the personal and the political in disability studies : a conversation with Shahd Alshammari

Abstract

Dr Shahd Alshammari is Assistant Professor of Literature at the Department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts and Sciences at the Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait. She teaches a variety of literature classes and creative writing. Her passion for disability studies is channelled through her academic work in literature as well as her own literary output. Shahd Alshammari: I am passionate about disability studies; I am one of the first scholars working on Disability Studies in the Middle East region. My work began more than a decade ago and I have been constantly trying to change the stereotypical research and writing about disability and the Global South. For example, I teach 19th century literature with a focus on Victorian understandings of the body and mental health. I expand this to include new readings of Victorian texts (such as the Brontës’ work) to consider whether characters like Jane Eyre were actually neurodivergent or perhaps autistic. I also focus on the collective obsession of the body and what it symbolises (the nation, deterioration of the nation) and how we can relate this to other cultures today. Drawing on classical texts, we can always find parallels today in various cultures and how society is still stigmatising disabled bodies. Another course I teach is Adolescent Literature and we look at various depictions of disability and otherness in fairy tales as well as Disney’s depiction of disability and the lack of representation. [excerpt]