Disarticulate

James Berger

Language is integral to our social being. But what is the status of those who stand outside of language The mentally disabled, wild children, people with autism and other neurological disorders, as well as animals, infants, angels, and artificial intelligences, have all engaged with language from a position at its borders. In the intricate verbal constructions of modern literature, the "disarticulate", those at the edges of language, have, paradoxically, played essential, defining roles. Drawing on the disarticulate figures in modern fictional works such as Billy Budd, The Sound and the Fury, Nightwood, White Noise, and The Echo Maker, among others, the author shows in this study how these characters mark sites at which aesthetic, philosophical, ethical, political, medical, and scientific discourses converge. It is also the place of the greatest ethical tension, as society confronts...