Disability Blog Carnival #72 is up now!

Dave Hingsburger has the December edition of the Disability Blog Carnival up this week at his blog, Rolling Around in my Head--he invited links about darkness and long nights and ways through them, marking the winter solstice, and he says "I applaud all who submitted and thank them for the many times I was moved, to tears, to thought and, perhaps even, to action."

The January edition will be hosted by Spaz Girl at Butterfly Dreams, and she's decided on "Let Your Freak Flag Fly" as the theme--here is her explanation/invitation/announcement. And I have Lil Watcher Girl of Through Myself and Back Again down for the February edition-- more to come on that soon I hope.

In January, I'll make a call for hosts for the rest of 2011--think about it and watch for the call in a few weeks. It's a commitment of time and organizational skills, but it can be fun and rewarding, and everyone who participates in any way--hosting, writing, submitting, commenting, linking, or reading--each of you is part of why this feature has continued for five years now. Thank you.

December 18: Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)

[Visual description: 1940 US Postage stamp honoring Edward MacDowell, depicted as a mustachioed white man with a sweep of thick hair, wearing a stiff collar and tie.]

Today is the 150th anniversary of American composer Edward MacDowell, born on this date in 1860 in New York City (though some sources give 1861). He showed promise as a pianist from a young age; when he was 17, his family moved to Paris so he could study at the Paris Conservatoire. He also studied in Frankfurt, and played for Liszt, and taught in Darmstadt. He became a music professor at Columbia University first chairman of the Music Department there, and was a prolific composer. In 1904, he was part of the first group of honorees named to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

But also in 1904, at age 44, he was run over in a streetcar accident, and his injuries apparently accelerated a progressive neurological condition. He was unable to continue composing or teaching. "His mind became as that of a little child," said Lawrence Gilman, a friend. "He sat quietly, day after day, in a chair by a window, smiling patiently from time to time at those about him, turning the pages of a book of fairy tales that seemed to give him a definite pleasure, and greeting with a fugitive gleam of recognition certain of his more intimate friends." Composer Edvard Grieg ascribed the trouble to MacDowell's remarkable artistic temperament and an "unusually sympathetic and sensitive nervous system": "An artist so ideally endowed as MacDowell must ask himself: Why have I received from nature this delicately strung lyre, if I were better off without it?" (letter quoted in Gilman's biography, p. 35)

There was certainly an awareness of brain injuries at the time, and of dementia, but little was available in the way of medical intervention or rehabilitation, and there was no economic safety net for him or his wife, either. Friends held fundraisers and prominent authors and musicians signed calls for support. MacDowell's wife Marian, herself a musician, refused to consider an institution, and cared for him at home (assisted by a nurse, Anna Baetz) for the three years until he died.

In fulfillment of their shared vision, Marian founded an artists' retreat, the MacDowell Colony at her farm in New Hampshire in 1907. Marian MacDowell (d. 1956) led the Colony for twenty-five years, funding it with her lectures and performances, mainly for women's organizations. Nurse Anna Baetz (d. 1923) stayed on, long past Edward's passing, to help with the colony's day-to-day running. Today, the MacDowell Colony can claim dozens of award-winning works of art that were written or begun at the Edward and Marian's farm.

CFP: Disability and Native American/Indigenous Studies

Call for Papers: Disability and Native American/Indigenous Studies

Special Issue of Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability (JLCDS)

Guest Editors, Siobhan Senier and Penelope Kelsey

In Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia 1900-1950, a Nisga’a elder implores the historian Mary Ellen Kelm: “When we talk about the poor health of our people, remember it all began with the white man” (xv). This special issue of JLCDS invites scholars to consider two interrelated phenomena: on the one hand, colonialism has produced indigenous disability and illness—through the depletion of traditional sources of food and medicine, enforced containment in boarding schools and substandard reservation housing, trauma, poverty and so on.

On the other hand, colonial discourse also pathologizes Native people—construing them as genetically prone to certain illnesses, for instance. Given these colonial phenomena, scholarship is particularly welcome that considers how Native people indigenize the famous disability-rights call, “nothing about us without us”—bringing tribally situated responses, adaptations, and resistance to disability and illness.

JLCDS seeks essays that conjoin the methodologies and content of Disability Studies with Native American/Indigenous Studies. The texts under consideration can range from literature and film, in any genre, to non-print and non-alphabetic media. Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

Tribally specific understandings/representations of illness and disability;
Applications of Disability Studies to indigenous texts;
Applications of indigenous methodologies to disability literature;
Colonization, medicalization, and the construction of disability;
Indigenous nationalisms, feminisms, and Two-Spirited resistance to the non-Native construction of disability;
Illnesses/disabilities more emic to the American Indian experience (i.e., tuberculosis, diabetes, PTSD, Split Feather syndrome);
Environmental degradation and racism and community health;
Representations of substance abuse and other community health concerns in colonial contexts;

Representations of indigenous disability vis-à-vis nation or community.

Proposals and queries should be sent to Siobhan.Senier@unh.edu and Penelope.Kelsey@colorado.edu Proposals are due by March 15, 2011, and proposal selections will be made by May 30, 2011. Completed essays for those selected are due October 1, 2011, and articles will be selected in December of 2011.

Dr. David Bolt
Lecturer, Disability Studies
http://www.hope.ac.uk/boltd
Director, Centre for Culture & Disability Studies
ccds.hope.ac.uk
Editor, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies
http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121628
Email: boltd@hope.ac.uk
Telephone 0151 291 3346
Postal address@ Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool,
L16 9JD

RIP: Laura Hershey (1962-2010)

Another sad, sudden loss: disability rights activist and poet Laura Hershey has died after a very brief illness. The Denver Post obituary has such a lovely photograph of her, and summarizes the facts of her life and work. Laura's facebook page has become (as they do, in such times) a place for posting condolences to the family and memories and tributes. Many other blogs have been posting the news and links to some of Laura Hershey's best-known works, including FWD ("You Get Proud by Practicing"), Media dis&dat, and Victor Pineda. Visit cripcommentary.com for links to many other materials written by or about Laura Hershey. She will be terribly missed.

Disability Blog Carnival #71 is up NOW!

The November edition is up at Modus Dopens, and it's a good solid collection of links, around the theme of intersections. Go, fix yourself a drink (suggests the host!), and have a read.

The December edition is due to post at Rolling Around in My Head, where Dave H has invited posts around the theme "long nights and what we need to get through them," appropriate for the month with the literal longest nights (in the Northern Hemisphere), and a month with holidays that can feel like very long nights for many. Submissions are invited by December 15th for inclusion in the carnival.

ETA (12/15): f you're planning ahead, January's carnival will be hosted at Butterfly Dreams, with the theme "Let Your Freak Flag Fly!" Go over to the call for submissions for elaboration on that, and instructions for submitting links.

Thanks as always to hosts, contributors, readers and commenters, for making the Disability Blog Carnival happen (now heading into our fifth year--first official edition was October 2006). I'll be posting another call for hosts in the new year, so think about whether you'd like to have a turn in 2011.

Todd Reynolds DSG Student Paper Competition - 2011

Disability Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (DSG)

Todd Reynolds DSG Student Paper Competition - 2011

- Call for Papers -

Students working on topics concerned with the complex and multifaceted geographies of disability, aging and chronic illnesses are encouraged to submit a paper to the 2011 AAG Disability Specialty Group Student Paper Competition. The successful student will receive a cash prize of $100.

The award is named after Todd Reynolds, Ph.D. (1971 - 2008), a scholar with disabilities who pursued important research in human behavior and hazards geography - In Memory of Todd Reynolds blog. The goal of the award is to encourage student participation in the specialty group and to recognize outstanding emerging scholarship in geographic research on aging, chronic illnesses and disability.

Eligibility criteria: Papers prepared for publication, conference presentation, and graduate or senior undergraduate courses, as well as entries written specifically for this competition, are eligible for submission. Each student may submit only one paper. The student should be the lead contributor to the paper if it is co-authored. Students do not have to be a current member of the DSG or AAG nor must they plan to attend the 2011 AAG conference to submit a paper. International submissions are welcome.

The paper should not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and figures). 12 point font is preferred along with standard margins.

A cover letter should accompany all entries and contain:

- Current title of the paper and a brief abstract (no more than 100 words)
- Author and co-authors’ names
- Academic affiliation
- Faculty advisor for the paper
- Mailing address
- E-mail address
- Phone number

Students considering submitting are advised to contact student paper competition coordinator Ryan Parrey by e-mail in advance. He will also gladly address any questions or concerns regarding participation in this competition.

Award notification: Reviewers will be secured and their recommendations will be sent to the DSG Board for the final award decision.The award recipient will be notified shortly after the 2011 AAG annual meeting in Seattle, Washington - more information. The check will be mailed to him/her shortly thereafter. Post-conference announcements will be found on the DSG website and the GEOGABLE listserv, as well as other appropriate venues including the Disability Studies, Temple U blog.

All entries must be received by February 28th, 2011 by email to:

Ryan Parrey
Disability Studies
University of Illinois, Chicago
rparrey@gmail.com

CFP: Disability, Humour, and Comedy

A call for papers from H-Disability today:

CFP: Disability, Humour and Comedy

A Special Issue of the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies

Guest Edited by
Dr. Tom Coogan (University of Leicester)
Dr. Rebecca Mallett (Sheffield Hallam University)

According to Morreall (2009), the Incongruity Theory “is today the most widely accepted theory of humour.” This theory holds that what makes a situation humorous is “that there is something odd, abnormal or out of place, which we enjoy in some way.” Add to this Mitchell and Snyder’s (2000) concept of narrative prosthesis, which identifies disability (and with it oddness, abnormality and “out of placeness”) as the crutch upon which narratives lean for their representational power, and a more fundamental relationship between disability and humour is suggested. As Moran (2003) has observed, humour is a term with a multitude of meanings. Among other things, she observes, it is a “cognitive style”; a term for a stimulus (e.g. a joke) or the response (e.g. laughter); a term for complex interactions between individuals; a “personality trait”; and an inherent characteristic.

Whatever the meaning, humour remains a multi-faceted thing. It can include as well as it excludes. It can both ease and exacerbate. What is clear is that humour creates many more questions than it answers. Who is allowed to make jokes about disability? If we are offended, should we just “get a sense of humour”? Is there a hierarchy of impairments, with some
impairments being “fair game” and others “off limits”? Is there such a thing as “disability”
humour? Does humour run the risk of attacking the seriousness, and thus the legitimacy, of disability rights? Or does it have a part to play in the struggle for such rights? How is disability playing out in the current vogues for satirical comedy and the comedy of embarrassment (e.g.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Office”)?

This special issue of JLCDS will explore the interplay between humour, impairment and disability across all forms of culture and the media. Submissions might consider representations of disability in particular texts or specific forms. Alternatively, they might examine disability theory in relation to humour theory. Submissions on all topics related to disability, humour and comedy are very welcome. Considerations of the impact of “political correctness” - the policing of what can and cannot be made funny - as well as the impact of “critical correctness” (Mallett, 2007) - the policing of what can and cannot be said about humorous/comedic representations of disability -are encouraged. We urge submissions to think the unthinkable and address the difficult questions.

Proposals should be emailed to the guest editors tac7@le.ac.uk or R.Mallett@shu.ac.uk by March 1st, 2011. Final submissions will be due by October 2011.