Monday, August 08, 2005

Simi Linton promotes DS in the Village Voice

Village Voice Education Supplement, Fall 2005
August 2nd, 2005 12:52 PM printer friendly

Body Politics
The wheel world: Is disability studies academia's next frontier?
by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow


Activist Simi Linton: “Disability studies is us looking out at the world and seeing how that looks to us.” photo: Ruth Morgan

Lest America divide too neatly into red/blue, NASCAR/latte blocs, one constituency can be counted on to muck up the dichotomy. People with disabilities defy political pigeonholing. The group considers itself an oppressed minority, and its civil rights agenda grew out of 1960s radicalism. But on issues such as euthanasia, disabled people find themselves allied with "culture of life" enthusiasts. As disability activist Simi Linton says, "A lot of disabled people justifiably feel vulnerable to ideas held by their family and the medical establishment that our lives are less valuable. . . . That is why I'm categorically opposed to physician- assisted suicide, because I think some people are more likely to be assisted than others." For secularists, this argument is a bit harder to dismiss than "because God said so."

Now disabled people have gotten into the business of problematizing: Disability studies has arrived in academia. Of course, the medical study of disability is long-standing, but the new approach establishes an interdisciplinary field on the model of women's, queer, and ethnic studies. Linton, author of the upcoming My Body Politic (Michigan), explains: "The curriculum had traditionally housed disability in a very sequestered area—how to fix people and take care of them. Disability studies is us looking out at the world and seeing how that looks to us." It also critiques "how disability is represented in all kinds of texts—in literature, film, the annals of history."

The Society for Disability Studies (SDS) was founded in 1982, with an emphasis on social science. In the early 1990s, scholars working independently in the humanities began to discover each other's work at SDS conferences. Linton, whose legs were paralyzed in a car accident in 1971, describes these conferences as "quite chaotic. You've got 50 people who use wheelchairs, you've got blind people with dogs, you've got deaf people with interpreters. . . . And we all sort of move to accommodate each other. It's a powerful experience for outsiders coming in for the first time."

Today, Syracuse, UC Berkeley, UCLA, the University of Wisconsin, and others offer programs in the field. Locally, the CUNY Graduate Center launched a certificate program last fall, consisting of four courses on the cultural and political aspects of disability, which can lead to various degrees. For the past two years, Columbia has hosted a monthly seminar for area faculty and grad students. Organized by Linton and colleagues, its topics range from disability in late capitalism to the intersection of disability and queer studies. Just last May, the field was officially recognized as a division by the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Disability scholars aim to revolutionize the way disability is imagined in our culture. Rather than pathologizing individuals, they ask how society accommodates different bodies (or doesn't). Disability, they point out, highlights the dynamic nature of identity itself: Entry into the disabled community could be a matter of an overlooked stop sign or the emergence of a lurking gene.

Anyone who's taken a women's studies class or read Edward Said will be familiar with the terms of the field. The study of disability, like that of gender, race, and sexual orientation, is rooted in bodies perceived as "other." All of these disciplines use the language of critical theory—Foucault, with his interrogations of power, the body, and pathology, is big in disability studies. And these related fields can cross-pollinate. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, who teaches in the women's studies department at Emory University, promotes the integration of feminist and disability studies. Her scholarship reveals unsettling parallels: Women have often been conflated with the disabled, beginning with Aristotle's representation of women as mutilated men.

Disability studies may sound esoteric, but it grapples with concerns any eighth-grader can relate to. The pressure to be normal is a major theme of the research. As Garland-Thomson has written, "[T]he cultural function of the disabled figure is to act as a synecdoche for all forms that culture deems non-normative." Disability discourse often touches on bodies that stray from the norm—"freaks," but also people considered fat, ugly, or funny looking.

Although disability has fruitfully integrated with other identity studies, the field has not always received a warm welcome. Alison Kafer, who teaches feminist and disability studies at Southwestern University, attributes resistance in part to funding, but on a deeper level, she notes that "women and queers and people of color have often been cast as sick. That's how discrimination was justified." Now those minorities are saying, "You know what—we're not sick," and they shun association with people still seen as defective. The ambivalence is mutual; some disability scholars want to jump from what they see as the sinking ship of identity studies. As University of Illinois at Chicago's Lennard J. Davis pointed out in a 2004 conference paper, "We are in a twilight of the gods of identity politics, and there is no Richard Wagner to make that crepuscular moment seem nostalgic and tragic." So disability studies has arrived, but is it too late?

Despite the falling currency of identity studies, the field's institutional gains are clear, if modest. But institutionalization may not be the primary goal. As Garland-Thomson says, "We don't necessarily need people majoring or minoring in disability studies. We need to create a system in which educated people have it as a category of understanding." She observes that many canonical literary works have a neglected disability aspect: Ahab in Moby Dick is an amputee, Shakespeare's Richard III is a hunchback, and several of Toni Morrison's characters are disabled as well as black and female. "You wouldn't have to teach a class called 'Disability and Literature,' " she says. In studying literature—or any subject—disability is simply an additional lens at our disposal. In literature, Garland-Thomson has found, disability is typically reduced to a metaphor, shorthand for strangeness.

Exciting scholarship is being generated. Last March's issue of the PMLA (the MLA's publication) featured papers from a recent MLA conference, including "Deaf, She Wrote: Mapping Deaf Women's Autobiography" and "Crip Eye for the Normate Guy: Queer Theory and the Disciplining of Disability Studies." One item on the field's agenda is to welcome cognitive disabilities into the fold. SDS continues to hold annual conferences as well. "I come back from SDS so excited," says Linton. "My colleagues are the smartest people I've met, ever."

4 comments:

Penny L. Richards said...

Thanks for posting this, Mike--and nicely done with the photo, too. It seems to me that PWDs aren't the only ones "mucking up the dichotomy" --every analysis piece on Latino voters makes that point too, at least out here in California (where we don't have many issues that have only two sides, anyway).

Penny

Anonymous said...

I like your blog. Thank you. They are really great . Ermunterung ++ .
Some new style Puma Speed is in fashion this year.
chaussure puma is Puma shoes in french . Many Franzose like seach “chaussure sport” by the internet when they need buy the Puma Shoes Or nike max shoes. The information age is really convenient .




By the way ,the nike max ltd is really good NIKE air shoes ,don’t forget buy the puma mens shoes and nike air max ltd by the internet when you need them . Do you know Nike Air Shoes is a best Air Shoes . another kinds of Nike shoes is better . For example , Nike Air Rift is good and Cheap Nike Shoes .the nike shox shoes is fitting to running.



Spring is coming, Do you think this season is not for Ugg Boots? maybe yes .but this season is best time that can buy the cheap ugg boots. Many sellers are selling discounted. Do not miss . Please view my fc2 blog and hair straighteners blog.
.thank you .


I like orange converse shoes ,I like to buy the cheap converse shoes by the internet shop . the puma shoes and the adidas shoes (or addidas shoes) are more on internet shop .i can buy the cheap nike shoes and cheap puma shoes online. It’s really convenient.
Many persons more like Puma basket shoes than nike air rift shoes . the Puma Cat shoes is a kind of Cheap Puma Shoes .
If you want to buy the Cheap Nike Air shoes ,you can buy them online. They are same as the Nike Air shoes authorized shop. Very high-caliber Air shoes and puma cat shoes . the cheap puma shoes as same as other.




polo shirts

ralph lauren polo shirts
chaussure puma
chaussure sport chaussures pumapuma CATed hardy clothing ed hardy clothesed hardy womens ed hardy sunglassesugg bootscheap ugg boots

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. good job. i have a ed hardy online store, I offer great brands at great prices.you may buy the ed hardy womens shirt in discount price these days .it's good gift for your girl . the best hot item is spyder jackets in the autumn.but some guy think the cheap columbia jackets better.

Anonymous said...

The word "shanzhai" is very popular in China. It is industry phenomenon of imitation, high quality and low price. Moreover, cell phones are the representative of them.The global financial crisis led to a significant shrinkage of assets for people. "china wholesale" demonstrate the might. most of them would like buy the cheap cell phones now .

Through google search engine, when you put in "discount cell phones", you will find more than 15,000 pieces of related information. Cell phone china has been concerned in the world. Many international sellers can get a considerable profit by ways of wholesale cell phones from China and switch selling. So it is a very good job on cell phones wholesale in the current financial crisis.