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Hardly escapism for by the pool on vacation but.... Some very worthwhile
reading and free for the download.
L. Scott Lissner,
University ADA Coordinator
Associate, John Glenn School of Public Affairs
Lecturer, Knowlton School of Architecture, Moritz College of Law &
Disability Studies
Office Of The Provost, The Ohio State University
1849 Cannon Drive
Columbus, OH 43210-1266
(614) 292-6207(v); (614) 688-8605(tty)
(614) 688-3665(fax); Http://ada.osu.edu
] On Behalf Of Brenda Brueggemann
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 2:14 PM
Subject: Summer 2009 Disability Studies Quarterly Goes Live!
THE SUMMER 2009 ISSUE OF DISABILITY STUDIES QUARTERLY IS NOW LIVE ONLINE
AT: http://www.dsq-sds.org/issue/current
As an appetizer for this super-size issue, here is the introduction
summarizing the delectable contents:
It's time to turbo charge your mouse, your screen reader, your puff
stick - and your mind: the Summer 2009 issue of DSQ is here! This is no
light (lite?) summer reading, rather we believe that this issue
illustrates the extraordinary academic growth and rich
interdisciplinarity that characterize the current field of Disability
Studies (DS) as it is also chronicled in the issue's opening article, "A
Multinational Review of English Language Disability Studies Degrees and
Courses."
In that survey, Pamela Cushing and Tyler Smith's data on the status and
offerings of Disability Studies in the English-speaking academic world
is impressive in its scope, analysis, and implications -- so much so
that we have also encouraged leading Disability Studies scholars from
various disciplines and sites in the English-speaking Disability Studies
landscape to respond to this survey in five brief forum commentaries
that accompany the original article. It is our belief that the diversity
of the style and content of those commentaries is but further evidence
of the range and robustness of our field.
And if those commentaries weren't enough, the other nine (9) articles in
this issue also further illustrate - in bold, colorful, and skilled
strokes - the interdisciplinary and intellectual prosperity of our field
today. In the first peer reviewed article, "Admission: Madness and
(Be)coming Out Within and Through Spaces of Confinement," situated in
the field of Art Education - an academic area still rarely traversed
with Disability Studies work - Jennifer Eisenhauer offers a
double-pronged critical and creative commentary on her own recent
gallery exhibition. Eisenhauer's essay explores what she articulates as
"(be)coming out" (based on Deleuze and Guattari's concepts), a
problematic she believes is particularly relevant for those with
nonvisible disabilities and for representations of mental illness.
Situated in the primary discipline of history, where a considerable
amount of Disability Studies scholarship has already taken place, Sarah
D. Phillips still travels to a relatively unknown place in her article,
"There Are No Invalids in the USSR!" A Missing Soviet Chapter in the New
Disability History." Phillips' comprehensive and engaging investigation
presents an overview of disability rights issues in the context of state
socialism in the former Soviet Union and asks us to reconsider
assumptions about the evolution of "disability rights" outside the West.
Situated in a more traditional setting for the study of "disability"
(the classroom), Joan M. Ostrove, Gina A. Oliva, and Abigail Katowitz
catalogue and analyze some "Reflections on the K-12 Years in Public
Schools: Relations with Hearing Teachers and Peers from the Perspective
of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults." In general terms, their study
explores how members of systematically disadvantaged groups describe
their interactions with members of dominant groups. More specifically,
they analyze written accounts from 60 deaf and hard-of-hearing adults to
highlight their most positive experiences and negative reflections
growing up in relation to their (mostly hearing) teachers and peers in
"mainstreamed" educational settings.
Also set in a classroom space, while additionally crossing into the
often contested terrain of the relationship between
religion/spirituality and disability, Nadjwa Norton's article also
considers both teacher and peer interactions around disability and
around a child/student with a disability. In "Gabe's Stories:
Intersecting Spirituality with Speech-Related (Dis)ability," Norton
employs a multicultural feminist critical narrative inquiry to
illustrate how one Puerto Rican/Black working class male draws on his
spirituality to negotiate his speech-related disability.
Anchored in the heart of English studies - an area Cushing and Smith
suggest is one of significant growth in Disability Studies programs,
courses, dissertations in the last decade - Sara Schotland analyze the
complex nature of, and response to, gender and disability in Victorian
fiction, specifically that of Charles Dickens. In "Who's That in Charge?
It's Jenny Wren, 'The Person of the House,'" Schotland focuses on Jenny
Wren, the dolls' dressmaker in Our Mutual Friend (1864-5). The
(disabled) character of Jenny Wren, Schotland argues, creates a unique
and constructive life, "overcoming" her infirmities as she reclaims a
reproductive future and creates a vision of the disabled woman as
beautiful.
Writing within another Humanities field, that of Philosophy, Melinda
Rosenberg investigates the implications of John Stuart Mill's
libertarian principles for political claims relating to disability. In
"Harm, Liberty, and Disability" Rosenberg invites us to consider the
presumed (and false) "harm" of disability in discourses related to human
and civil rights and liberty.
Situated in the discipline of Social Work, Lightman et al. draw on
interviews with eight (8) respondents in Toronto, all of whom applied
for, but were denied, long-term assistance because they were considered
in some way "not disabled enough." In "'Not Disabled Enough': Episodic
Disabilities and the Ontario Disability Support Program," they examine
the tension between the ways episodic disabilities are embodied versus
the manner in which "disability status" is legislatively constructed.
They conclude with strategies for addressing the wider spectrum of the
"not disabled enough" disability experience for policy.
Also operating with an applied approach to disability/studies, Leonard
Jason et al. examine " Types of Fatigue Among Individuals with ME/CFS."
Based on the development and administration of a 22-item fatigue
questionnaire given to 130 persons diagnosed with ME/CFS and 251
controls, their findings suggest that individuals with ME/CFS experience
different types of fatigue than those reported in general populations
when "fatigue" and daily performance are discussed.
In the ninth peer-reviewed article, Sara Newman employs a
cross-disciplinary rhetorical analysis to trace shifting and contested
definitions of Tourette Syndrome in recent Democractic policy debates.
In "Irreconcilable Differences? Tourette Syndrome, Disability, and
Definition in Democratic Policy Debates," Newman applies an explicit
model for arguing and advocating with definitions (as they relate to
disability generally but also to Tourette Syndrome more specifically)
while she also examines how an advocacy organization has participated in
civic deliberations about disability law in the public schools.
This issue also features five astonishingly diverse book reviews as even
further evidence of the extent and depth of new work in our field. These
days we are clearly "dressed to impress." So put on your sunscreen, pull
up a chair at the DSQ beach, and prepare to be dazzled (though not
burnt) by the brilliance of our field in this long and sunny issue.
--
Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Professor, English
Associate Faculty: Comparative Studies
Associate Faculty: Women's Studies
Coordinator, Disability Studies Program
Faculty Leader, American Sign Language
Co-Editor, Disability Studies Quarterly
--
Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Professor, English
Associate Faculty: Comparative Studies
Associate Faculty: Women's Studies
Coordinator, Disability Studies Program
Faculty Leader, American Sign Language
Co-Editor, Disability Studies Quarterly
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