On March 29, 2024, Professor of English Rosemary Haskell presented a paper at the National Conference of the Popular Culture Association, in Chicago.
Professor of English Rosemary Haskell presented a paper at the National Conference of the Popular Culture Association, in Chicago on March 29.
The paper, “The Impaired and Disabled Fat Detective: Ann Cleeves’s Inspector Vera Stanhope and the `Defective Detective’ Fictional Tradition,” interprets the 10 novels in the Vera Stanhope series from a combined disabilities and feminist fat studies perspective.
Throughout the series (1999-2022), Cleeves consistently demonstrates how Vera capitalizes professionally on her physical and psychological impairments and their consequent personal and social disabilities. The fat, ugly, late middle-aged police inspector is a professional success in a world where gender, class and workplace expectations would seem to handicap her.