Temporalities, a disability chronotope, and empathetic horizons in Still Human

Journal article


Cockain, A. 2021. Temporalities, a disability chronotope, and empathetic horizons in Still Human. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. 15 (1), pp. 19-37. https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2021.2
AuthorsCockain, A.
Abstract

The article engages with arrangements of time and space and how they conjoin to constitute a disability chronotope that combines with other textual elements to both expand and limit empathetic horizons in Still Human, a film about a physically impaired middle-aged man and his Pilipino foreign domestic helper (FDH), set largely within a Hong Kong public housing estate. The study distinguishes between the text's declarative and descriptive layers, albeit while recognizing the forced and perhaps violent nature of this division. Structuring the surface of the film are technical codes and a chronological, optimistic, and sometimes humorous overcoming narrative through which protagonists triumph over tragedy. However, the surface of the text is intermittently disturbed by descriptive layers, or figurative currents. Although this troubling content appears peripheral to, and on the margins of, the text, this underlying and seemingly extraneous content is a crucial supplement which may more effectively realize authorial intentions to disclose the protagonists' humanness and engender empathy than the more prominent technical codes that structure the text's surface. Such coexisting layers illustrate how texts are stratified and how the content of texts and the intentions of authors are haunted by undecidability.

KeywordsFilm; Disability; Hong Kong
Year2021
JournalJournal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies
Journal citation15 (1), pp. 19-37
PublisherLiverpool University Press
ISSN1757-6458
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2021.2
Official URLhttps://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/article/60751/
Publication process dates
Deposited11 Oct 2021
Accepted author manuscript
License
Output statusPublished
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https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/8z2w9/-temporalities-a-disability-chronotope-and-empathetic-horizons-in-still-human

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Accepted author manuscript
2020 06 25 Still Human.pdf
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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