Holographic Holocaust testimony and the ethics of embodiment: a disability studies perspective

We argue the need for coalition between trans and disability studies and activism, and that Disability Studies gives us the tools for this task. Our argument rests upon six facets. First and foremost, we explicitly acknowledge the existence of trans disabled people, arguing that Disability Studies must recognise the diversity of disabled people’s lives. Second, we consider how the homogenisation of womanhood, too often employed in transmisogonist arguments particularly when coming from those claiming to be feminists, harm both non-disabled trans women and cis disabled women. This leads to our third point, that Feminist Disability studies must be anti-reductive, exploring how gendered experiences rest upon other social positions (disability, queerness, race etc.) Fourth, we reflect upon the ways in which Disability Studies and feminism share a struggle for bodily autonomy, and that this should include trans people’s bodily autonomy. Finally, we argue that Trans and Disability Studies and activism share complex and critical relationships with medicine, making Disability and Trans Studies useful allies in the fight for better universal health care. We conclude by calling for our colleagues in Disability Studies to challenge transmisogony and transphobia and that transphobia is not compatible with Disability Studies perspectives.

Blind Warriors, Supercrips, and Techno-Marvels : Challenging Depictions of Disability in Star Wars

This theoretical paper aims to explore the role of a disability studies perspective in music therapy. Disability studies in context of music therapy is a field that is under development. I argue that a disability studies perspective both supports and challenges music therapy models, practice, and research. A disability studies perspective provides a theoretical framework for social justice and the appraisal of diversity, as well as it challenges attitudes and values. This paper suggests dialogues and collaboration between music therapy and disability studies.

In 2005, the American Journal of Occupational Therapy published a special issue focused on disability studies. Contributing authors challenged readers to reflect on their practices and recommended ways to change the field, yet literature on the current state of the integration of disability studies into occupational therapy is scarce. To engage the original authors of the 2005 special issue in an examination of perspectives on how disability studies perspectives have contributed to changes within occupational therapy and what work remains. The research team conducted semistructured interviews with 11 authors who published an article in the special issue. Interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Triangulation of coders, multiple phases of data analysis, and member checking were used to establish trustworthiness. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) exposure to disability and disability studies, (2) impact of the special issue on occupational therapy, (3) changes observed in occupational therapy beyond the special issue, (4) challenges integrating disability studies into occupational therapy, and (5) disability studies-informed recommendations for occupational therapy. Although the original contributing authors acknowledged the transformative impact of disability studies on their own practice and scholarship, the results suggest that disability studies remains outside mainstream occupational therapy scholarship. Exploring the connections and divergence between disability studies and fields such as occupational science could improve understanding of how disability studies concepts are defined and used in theory and practice. What This Article Adds: Since the publication of the original special issue in 2005, the field of disability studies has continued to influence occupational therapy, although more often in individual than in systemic ways. Work is needed to embrace a disability studies-informed critical and intersectional foundation for the profession and explore the ways in which occupational therapy can better partner with populations through a disability studies lens.

Reviewed by: Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies eds. by Susan Antebi and Beth E. Jörgensen Benjamin Fraser Antebi, Susan, and Beth E. Jörgensen, eds. Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies. Albany: SUNY P, 2016. Pp. 290. ISBN 978-1-43845-967-7. EDITORIAL POLICY: Hispania publishes reviews of selected books and electronic media in the following categories: Pan-Hispanic/Luso-Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies; Linguistics, Language, and Media; and Fiction and Film. Publishers and authors should submit their materials for possible selection to the Book/Media Review Editor, Domnita Dumitrescu, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032. Submitted materials will not be returned to publishers or authors, even if they are not selected for review. Members of the AATSP who wish to be considered as reviewers should upload their information at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hispan and send their CV to the Book/Media Review Editor at ddumitrescu@aatsp.org. Hispania will not accept unsolicited reviews and does not publish journal numbers, book notices, or reviews of works more than two years old. Due to the number of works that correspond to Hispania’s broad scope, not all requests to review specific items can be granted. We especially encourage, however, requests to review film and other media resources. An invitation to review does not guarantee publication. All reviews are evaluated by anonymous readers and publication decisions are based upon their comments and the discretion of the editors. A volume quite aware of its unique positioning, Libre Acceso is a major contribution to the interdisciplinary field of Latin American disability studies. The importance of this positioning cannot be understated. The collection succeeds by staging an “encounter between two complex and vigorously debated disciplines: Latin American literary, film and cultural studies, and disability studies” (9). Wonderfully, it performs a “decolonization of disability studies” that is quite necessary (19) and opens “an interdisciplinary and transregional dialogue on disability studies” (20). The division of the edited volume into four sections suggests a thematic coherence that, in all honesty, is at odds with the true originality of the individual chapters, each of which might otherwise stand alone in any number of top-tier journal publications. But then again, if these essays were scattered throughout the disciplinary landscape of the wider field of Hispanic studies—where disability studies perspectives still do not receive the attention they deserve—readers would be unlikely to find them. Libre Acceso is a powerful call to Hispanist scholars to explore disability studies themes, but given its publication in English, it is simultaneously a call to disability studies scholars to see that the ‘global turn’ called for by the likes of Stuart Murray and Clare Barker—among others—is well underway. The contributions that bookend the volume illustrate its unique position at the intersection of two fields. The first chapter after the introduction, “Blind Spot: Notes on Reading Blindness” is written by Lina Meruane, an acclaimed Chilean novelist who here self-reflexively considers her own approach to writing. The epilogue titled “#YoSoy” is written by Robert McRuer, a renowned disability studies scholar rooted in an English department who here revisits the book’s contents in light of an expanding Latin American and ultimately global perspective on disability. The chapters in-between take on cultural production from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru, but do so dialoguing with what often seems to be required reading for disability studies scholars: not only McRuer, but also Michel Bérubé, David Bolt, Thomas Couser, Lennard Davis, Nirmala Erevelles, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Rod Michalko, David T. Mitchell, Michael Oliver, Jasbir Puar, Ato Quayson, Carrie Sandahl, Tom Shakespeare, [End Page 137] Tobin Siebers, Sharon L. Snyder, Tanya Titchkosky and more. The contributions deftly navigate this disciplinary combination in their own way, incorporating the work of well-known and lesser-known names (Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Elena Poniatowska, Gabriela Brimmer, Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez, Roberto Bolaño, João Guimarães Rosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Antonio José Ponte, Miriam Alves, Mario Bellatin and Carmen Boullosa), and also a selection of recent...

Over the past 20 years, disability studies has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field. The five co-authors have worked together to examine the work of feminist disability scholarship with the goal of incorporating disability studies into our current intersectional approach to teaching. We begin with a brief introduction to feminist disability studies, paying particular attention to issues of identity and embodiment, and the ways in which disability, like gender, is socially constructed. We then share how the incorporation of a disability studies lens has influenced each of our courses, providing concrete examples. We examine the creation of new courses, such as the Sociology of Disability and Disability Studies in Education, which both explore disability through a gender, race, and class lens. Additionally, we discuss the integration of disability into existing courses, including an intersectional theory course, and a course on class, stratification, and power. Finally, we present an example of how disability studies perspectives can transform the teaching of a specific subject widely taught in gender-related courses—reproductive justice and the politics of choice. Bringing disability studies into the dialogue does not simply add to the curriculum and make it more inclusive, it also transforms it.

Disability studies is a field of critical study that emerged from the disability rights movement as a challenge to the medicalization of the lives of people with disabilities. Disability studies, while often critical of medicine and rehabilitation, has the potential to inform and improve practice by making it more responsive and relevant to the long-term needs and desires of people with disabilities. This article provides an introduction to the field of disabilities studies followed by a discussion of how disability studies perspectives can be infused into and ultimately strengthen rehabilitation practice.

This chapter analyzes the special education edTPA handbook through a disability studies perspective. This analysis of the special education edTPA is written by two professors who co-taught a student teaching seminar at one institution and supported its first group of teacher candidates required to submit the edTPA for certification in New York State. Findings show that the edTPA detracted from teacher candidates building competencies that are most essential for competent inclusive educators, that the language and writing of the exam posed difficulties and the edTPA impacted the fieldwork experiences of candidates. We describe these findings and discuss their implications for inclusive and special education as understood through a disability studies perspective.

Introduction: The Formation of Disability Studies - Gary L Albrecht, Katherine D Seelman, and Michael Bury PART ONE: THE SHAPING OF DISABILITIES STUDIES AS A FIELD An Institutional History of Disability - David L Braddock and Susan Parish Counting Disability - Glenn T Fujiura and Violet Rutkowski-Kmitta Disability Definitions, Models, Classification Schemes and Applications - Barbara Altman Theorizing Disability - Gareth Williams Methodological Paradigms That Shape Disability Research - Scott Campbell Brown Disability - Patrick Fougeyrollas and Line Beauregard An Interactive Person-Environment Social Creation Representation and Its Discontents - David T Mitchell and Sharon L Snyder The Uneasy Home of Disability in Literature and Film Philosophical Issues in the Definition and Social Response to Disability - David Wasserman Disability and the Sociology of the Body - Bryan S Turner Intellectual Disabilities- Quo Vadis? - Trevor R Parmenter Disability, Bioethics and Human Rights - Adrienne Asch Disability Studies and Electronic Networking - Ellen Liberti Blasiotti, John D Westbrook, and Iwao Kobayashi PART TWO: EXPERIENCING DISABILITY Divided Understandings - Carol Gill The Social Experience of Disability Mapping the Family - Philip M Ferguson Disability Studies and the Exploration of Parental Response to Disability Disability and Community - Michael P Kelly A Sociological Approach Welfare States and Disabled People - Robert F Drake Advocacy and Political Action - Sharon Barnartt, Kay Schrinerm and Richard Scotch Health Care Professionals and Their Attitudes Towards, and Decisions Affecting Disabled People - Ian Basnett The Role of Social Networks in the Lives of Persons with Disabilities - Bernice A Pescosolido Inclusion/Exclusion - Jean-Francois Ravaud and Henri-Jacques Stiker An Analysis of Historical and Cultural Meanings PART THREE: DISABILITY IN CONTEXT Disability Culture - Colin Barnes and Geoff Mercer Assimilation or Inclusion? Identity Politics, Disability and Culture - Lennard J Davis Making the Difference - Tom Shakespeare and Nick Watson Disability, Politics, and Recognition Disability Human Rights, Law and Policy - Jerome E Bickenbach The Political Economy of the Disability Marketplace - Gary L Albrecht and Michael Bury Disability and Health Policy - Gerben DeJong and Ian Basnett The Role of Markets in the Delivery of Health Services Disability Benefit Programs - Bonnie O'Day and Monroe Berkowitz Can We Improve the Return to Work Record? A Disability Studies Perspective on Employment Issues and Policies for Disabled People - Kay Schriner An International View Science and Technology Policy - Katherine D Seelman Is Disability a Missing Factor? Disability, Education and Inclusion - Len Barton and Felicity Armstrong Cross-Cultural Issues and Dilemmas Support Systems - Simi Litvak and Alexandra Enders The Interface Between Individuals and Environments The Relationship between Disabled People and Health and Welfare Professionals - Sally French and John Swain Public Health Trends in Disability - Don Lollar Past, Present, and Future Disability in the Developing World - Benedicte Ingstad

Our educational system is undergoing great scrutiny. The success of our nation's schools and their students is under serious evaluation and interpretation. Currently, one of the most visible and pertinent “political products” impacting our schools and students is the federal legislation No Child Left Behind (2002). Specific concerns arise around schools' ability to include students with disabilities, among other “disadvantaged groups,” in strategies for academic success. Disability Studies contends that the place and positioning of disability is fundamentally political. This article uses a Disability Studies lens to critique NCLB. The potential benefits, problematic areas, and dangerous aspects to schools, teachers, parents, students with disabilities, and the community at large are presented within this Disability Studies context.

This article responds to two intertwined questions: :“What is the role of a Disability Studies perspective within music therapy?” And: “What is the role of music therapy from a Disability Studies perspective?” Exploring some of the congruities and tensions that have emerged in recent years between music therapy, and the burgeoning field of Disability Studies in Music (Lubet, 2004 & 2010; Straus, 2006 & 2011; Straus & Lerner, 2006), I argue that both Disability Studies in Music, and music therapy, can benefit from greater acknowledgement of music's capacity to constrain and enable the human body,in complicated ways. The approach taken in this article imagines music therapy as a a reciprocal encounter in which diagnoses and intervention are replaced by a spirit of collaborative learning. The article pushes music therapy towards the idea of ability and disability as bodily performances (Sandahl & Auslander, 2005; Straus, 2011), rather than either exalted or pathological states of being, and suggests that in taking such a perspective as a point of departure, both music therapy and Disability Studies in Music will find new pathways between their respective theoretical and methodological environments.

This book includes a collection of essays that explore the relationship between Disability Studies and literary ecocriticism, particularly as this relationship plays out in American literature and culture. The contributors to this collection operate from the premise that there is much to be gained for both fields by putting them in conversation, and they do so in a variety of ways. In this manner, the collection contributes to what Joni Adamson and Scott Slovic have referred to as a “third wave of ecocriticism.” Adamson and Slovic attribute the rise of this “third wave” to the richly diverse contributions to ecocriticism over the past decade by scholars intent on including postmodernism, ecofeminism, transnationalism, globalization, and postcolonialism into ecocritical discussions. The essays in Toward an Ecosomatic Paradigm extend this approach of this “third wave” by analyzing disability from an “environmental point of view” while simultaneously examining the environmental imagination from a disability studies perspective. More specifically, the goal of the collection is to investigate the role that literary narratives play in fostering the “ecosomatic paradigm.” As a theoretical framework, the ecosomatic paradigm underscores the dynamic and inter-relational process wherein human mind-bodies interact with the places, both built and wild, they inhabit. That is, the ecosomatic paradigm proceeds from the assumption that nature and culture are meshed in an ongoing and deep relationship that has implications for both the human subject and the natural world. An ecosomatic approach highlights the profound overlap between embodiment and emplacement, and is therefore enriched by both disability studies and ecocritical insight. By drawing on points of confluence between disability studies and ecological criticism, the various ecosomatic readings in this collection challenge normative (even ableist) constructions of the body-environment dyad by complicating and expanding our understanding of this relationship as it is represented in American literature and culture. Collectively, the essays in this book augment the American environmental imagination by highlighting the relationship between disability and the environment as reflected in American literary texts across multiple periods and genres.

This essay combines personal and academic reflection on teaching critical thinking through a disability studies perspective, and is illustrated by our experiences and insights teaching an undergraduate, general education course. We began with the understanding that disability studies is itself a critical engagement with a dominant ideology of bodily normalcy, value, access and power. We perhaps assumed that to teach disability studies at all would already entail critical thinking. But our experiences teaching this class challenged our beginning assumptions and raised the following questions, which form the focus for this discussion: Do disability studies classes (or any classes for that matter) enact critical thinking agendas by their content alone? What is the role of DS pedagogy in the goal of teaching critical thinking, and how can the teaching itself work to facilitate this goal by all engaged parties? We suggest that teachers incorporating DS consider the concept of "critical progress" rather than assuming that critical thinking is an end goal.

Disability studies do not have a tradition in Romania and our research aims to present and study valuable initiatives of museums in this area. From the perspective of disability studies, in this article we analyze two exhibitions organised by Romanian museums. These projects showcased artistic explorations of disability undertaken by contemporary artists. The exhibitions also represented an occasion to debate on the rights of the people with disabilities and to reflect on changes in our society. We offer a theoretical approach based on both museum and disability studies and we analyze the artistic projects using concepts such as inclusion, diversity, accessibility. These initiatives are important because they demonstrate the engagement of Romanian museums in current societal issues.

Flannery O'Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity Timothy J. Basselin. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013.Timothy J. Basselin's Flannery O'Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity is a captivating work which explores Flannery O'Connor's fiction from a perspective of disability studies and a theology of disability. Throughout the book, Basselin presents a compelling argument for the influence O'Connor's illness played in molding her writing and discusses how her perceptions of good, evil, sickness, and limitations enhanced her uniqueness as a writer.The text is structured into four primary chapters covering topics ranging from how the authentic grotesque manifests itself in her fiction to the inherent conflicts that existed between O'Connor's perspectives and that of society's modern Enlightenment-de rived philosophies. Some of the O'Connor works specifically examined include A Good Man is Hard to Find, A Temple of the Holy Ghost, Everything That Rises Must Converge, Good Country People, Habit of Being, Parker's Back, Revelation, The Displaced Person, The Enduring Chill, The Lame Shall Enter First, The River, and The Violent Bear It Away.The book also features a tasteful postscript section in which Basselin elaborates on some of the challenges he encountered when incorporating disability studies language into the text. The attention devoted to expounding on the difficulties of this task alludes to his impressive ability to address sensitive, philosophical issues with the tactfulness and care they require. Flowever, much like O'Connor, Basselin does not shy away from making bold, declarative points to support his theories and does a commendable job of thoroughly supporting his assessments with necessary literature.Aesthetically, the book's cover is quite attractive with an engaging design featuring a picture of a young O'Connor immersed in reading a publication with which she assumes a contemplative, if not disturbed, expression. Fier furrowed brow interestingly emits a discernible tension present in her examination of the publication, which is a visual readers may identify as particularly foretelling to the inquisitorial spirit she was known to have exhibited throughout her life. The book itself seems relatively slight when considering the extensive body of literature available on O'Connor as well as the wealth of information published on disability studies. However, upon delving into the beginning paragraphs, it quickly becomes apparent this resource takes full advantage of its allotted pages by treating readers with clear and purposeful writing.From the opening pages, Basselin intricately sows stories of O'Connor's childhood, life experiences, and family relationships to form a foundation upon which he discusses her struggle with lupus and the substantial impact her limitations had on developing her ideologies and writing. …