Stuttering from the Anus

Authors

  • Daniel Martin MacEwan University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v5i3.299

Keywords:

Stuttering, Dysfluency, Speech, Voice, Narcissism, Psychoanalysis, Disability studies, Anus, Feces

Abstract

This piece of writing is intended as a plea to people who stutter to embrace psychoanalytic theories of stuttering that relate dysfluent speech to unresolved neuroses stemming from the anal stage of human development. Premising its ideas on early psychoanalytic work by Sigmund Freud and Otto Fenichel, among others, this essay argues that there is much to be gained from pathologizing dysfluent speech as a product of unresolved narcissistic aggression. Rather than articulate a psychoanalytic cure for such aggression, this work of creative scholarly labour suggests that analogies comparing dysfluent speech to excrement have the potential to emancipate stuttering from the limited confines of the person who stutter’s mouth.

References

Allan, Jonathan. Reading From Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2016.

Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Translated by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. New York: Macmillan, 1913.

Connor, Steven. Beyond Words: Sobs, Hums, Stutters and Other Vocalizations. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.

Coriat, Isador H. Stammering: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. New York: Nervous and Mental

Diseases, 1927.

Dolar, Mladen. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge: MIT, 2006.

Falzeder, Ernst and Eva Brabant, eds. The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Belknap, 1996.

Fenichel, Otto. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Norton, 1945.

Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 7. Translated by James Strachey. London: Vintage, 2001.

Glauber, Peter I. Stuttering: A Psychoanalytic Understanding, edited by Helen M. Glauber. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1982.

Hill, Steve. “Attempting to Kill my Stuttering Demons.” Stuttering Therapy Centre. Last modified January 16, 2013. http://www.stutteringtherapycentre.co.uk/blog/attempting-to-kill-my-stuttering-demons.html

Kingsley, Charles. “The Irrationale of Speech.” Fraser’s Magazine 60 (1859): 1-14.

Lacan, Jacques. On Feminine Sexuality: The Limits of Love and Knowledge. 1972-73, Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XX. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: Norton, 1999.

--------. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1998.

Marshall, Caitlin. “Crippled Speech,” Postmodern Culture 24, no. 3 (2014). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/589570;

Migone, Christof. Sonic Somatic: Performances of the Unsound Body. Berlin: Errant Bodies Press, 2012.

Mitchell, David. Black Swan Green: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2007.

--------. “Let Me Speak.” The Telegraph. Last modified April 30, 2006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3652013/Let-me-speak.htm

Richter, Zach, Erin Schick, and Joshua St. Pierre. Did I Stutter. Last modified August 2016. http://www.didistutter.org.

Sheehan, Joseph G. Stuttering: Research and Therapy. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

St. Pierre, Joshua. “The Construction of the Disabled Speaker: Locating Stuttering in Disability Studies.” In Literature, Speech Disorders, and Disability: Talking Normal, edited by Christopher Eagle, 9-23. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Tupper, Martin Farquhar. “The Stammerer’s Complaint” (1838). Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures & Contexts. Last modified 2015. http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/21.

Published

2016-10-31

How to Cite

Martin, D. (2016). Stuttering from the Anus. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 5(3), 114–134. https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v5i3.299