Moving, with Curved Strength

Abstract

Moving, with Curved Strength Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction by Petra Kuppers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 204 pages. $110.00 hardback, $38.00 paperback.Already in 2004, question was being asked as to where field of disability studies was heading. In his presentation at Conference on Disability Studies and University titled Disability: Next Wave or Twilight of Gods?, Lennard J. Davis asked Are we in dawn, midday, or twilight of disability studies? Is there a post-disability studies waiting in wings? Or, to in other language, is there a second or even third wave of disability studies in offing?1 Whereas some influential scholars-Davis cites Tobin Siebers and Simi Linton-argue that next wave of disability studies should refrain from emphasizing instability of field, Davis suggests that this very instability will allow identity politics to progress beyond their current shape. For him, destabilization of identity-from questioning validity of race to notions of a gender continuum to emphases on a new globality- corresponds to the kind of identity proposed by a second-wave disability studies.2 Petra Kuppers's introduction to disability studies, Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction, reflects this second-wave emphasis on openness of category and potential categorization of disability. By keeping this question open, Kuppers's introduction to disability studies remains attuned to not only nondominant and nonnormative voices that have informed field but also those voices that still need to be heard.Early in her book, Kuppers declares that you will likely not come up with a single firm definition of disability-throughout this book, 'disability' will be a machine rather than an entity, something to do stuff with, to move with, to with-not something one can name and nail down (10). This is promise and originality of Kuppers's book: far from simply acting as an introduction to terms, figures, and themes of disability studies, it presents disability as a machine, as an embodied learning practice by using modalities to allow for access, for aesthetic complexity, and for different kinds of ownership of material (170). For example, while university instructors are typically assumed to be nondisabled-that is, epitome of able-mindedness-chapter 1 draws on work of Kristina Knoll to promote a pedagogical practice founded on an ethos of interdependency, which emphasizes dependency of instructors on their students and therefore their respective position as cocreators in enriching classroom. Studying Disability Arts and Culture clearly and creatively brings together quotations from foundational texts as well as exercises and activities (i.e., longer-form exercises) that allow for explorations of various ideas and themes introduced in book. Kuppers frequently references The Observation Wheel (found in appendix), an image of a wheel divided into four sections- (1) see, (2) hear (3) shadow resource, and (4) joy, vibration, sef-that shifts depending on which images and videos are being analyzed. This wheel epitomizes book's pedagogical style, as concepts are worked through with multiple modalities to honor many different learning styles (172).Chapters 2-5 of Studying Disability Arts and Culture offer different perspectives on disability: language, discourse, embodiment/ enmindment, and disability culture, respectively. These chapters speak to openness of disability, a refusal to assert answers in favor of questions and artfulness. Rather than strict definitions of disabilities, reader is presented with narratives and stories that do not offer truth, but exploration and experience, which allow one to think differently about [oneself] and [the] cultural world (9). …