Hi
On a personal note, I did find some useful readings for students amongst the
chapters in the Handbook (such as Adrienne's) but, like others, I was quite
taken aback by the theoretical (or atheoretical?) stance of some other
chapters. The medico-functional framework for some of these appeared to run
directly counter to the theoretical distinctiveness of critical disability
studies and I did not therefore feel comfortable that the volume as a whole
really 'represented' or 'defined' the discipline in a way that I was
familiar with. But let's not get too excited about it, or too personal, some
books are going to leave more of a mark than others and the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. It's on my reading list and I would not discourage
students from dipping into it, although I don't think we'll be needing more
than one copy in the library.
...with that in mind...list members may also be interested to know more
about the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Disability (also published by Sage,
also edited by Gary Albrecht, but this time in FOUR volumes and 900 pages!).
Presumably this will be even more definitive than the Handbook? I only heard
about it recently, but apparently, there are 12 editors dealing with
contributions from approximately '400 international scholars in disability'
(a list of those would be interesting?). The 12 are:
> Jerome Bickenbach, Queen's University, Ontario and WHO, Geneva
> Scott Campbell Brown, U.S. Department of Education
> Dudley S. Childress, Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute
of Chicago
> Joseph Flaherty, M.D., Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of
Illinois at Chicago
> Mairian Scott-Hill, Kings College, London
> Allan W. Heinemann, Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute
of Chicago
> Tamar Heller, Head, Department of Disability and Human Development, UIC
> David Mitchell, University of Illinois at Chicago
> Trevor R. Parmenter, University of Sydney, Australia
> Sharon Synder, University of Illinois at Chicago
> Eliot Roth, M.D. Northwestern University and Medical Director,
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
> Tom Shakespeare, Newcastle, England
Would this be the new 'Chicago school'? Eclectic collaboration or Faustian
pact...? ...and will anyone really care...? Who is it supposed to be for
(and more importantly who will benefit from it)? Given the choice between
400 scholars working on an Encyclopedia or working on a rights based UN
Convention I know what my preference would be. There must be more important
things for us to be discussing at the present time. Let's not forget where
we're coming from, or indeed where we want to get to.
Best wishes
Mark.
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