REFRAMING THE CANON: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF VULNERABILITY STUDIES IN REIMAGINING ENGLISH STUDIES

Vulnerability Studies is an emergent interdisciplinary field that emphasizes the shared and structural fragility of human life, especially in the context of power, identity, and trauma. In English Studies, vulnerability offers a shift away from disembodied critique towards affective, ethical, and embodied modes of literary engagement. This paper explores how Vulnerability Studies transforms the reading, teaching, and theorization of literature, particularly through examples from Indian Literature and Indian Literature in English. Drawing on the works of Judith Butler, Martha Fineman, and Lauren Berlant, alongside readings of writers such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Mahasweta Devi, Bama, Arundhati Roy, and Perumal Murugan, this paper argues that vulnerability is not a mark of weakness but a critical site of agency and resistance. Ultimately, this framework enriches literary scholarship by enabling a more inclusive and empathetic English Studies and foregrounding voices and aesthetics that have been historically marginalized in the discipline.