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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
Terrific collection of essays, fiction, and poetry 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 24 people found this review helpful.
This is a purposeful and strong collection of essays, fiction, and poetry that serves to illuminate a comparatively new (although long in coming) and vibrant discipline, Disability Studies, which, according to editor (and contributor) Dr. Lennard Davis, "is both an academic field of inquiry and an area of political activity." Davis has written an elegant introduction that is ideological - with good reason. He provides an overview and defines the field and its terms. Davis cites many of the developers and 'early' thinkers (ancient times to the present) of disability studies and, in summary, asserts that Disability Studies is not about "sensitizing" "normal" persons. Disability Studies is, rather, "in favor of advocacy, investigation, inquiry, archeology, genealogy, dialectic, and deconstruction."
The book (which does not have to be read in any particular order) is divided into seven main sections: "Historical Perspectives," "Politics of Disability," "Stigma and Illness," "Gender and Disability," "Disability and Education," "Disability and Culture," and finally a small section of fiction and poetry.
Davis' "Constructing Normalcy" appears first, appropriately so, for in my view it's really required reading. There is a generous selection of essays on Deafness and Deaf culture. (Davis himself grew up as the child of Deaf parents). Some of my favorite essays: Harlan Hahn's "Advertising the Acceptably Employable Image," on the relationship between capitalism and disability; Susan Wendell's deeply personal and thoughtful "Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability," in which she points out, "When you listen to this culture in a disabled body, you hear how often health and physical vigor are talked about as if they were moral virtues." Susan Sontag writes on AIDS and metaphor. "Blindness and Art" by Nicholas Mirzoeff is complex, difficult, and worth the effort. In addition there are a number of incredibly powerful historical discussions.
This is a terrific textbook - for it contains a wealth of material that is challenging and engaging. Readers interested in this field and its ideas will be pleased. As a reference work it'll doubtless be useful for many years. It's solid and complex, and definitely worth reading.
Editorial Review:
The second edition of The Disability Studies Reader builds and improves upon the classic first edition, which has sold well over 6000 copies since 1999. As a field, disability studies burst onto the scene across the social sciences and humanities in the 1990s, and the first edition of the reader gathered the best work that had been written on the subject, including essays by famous authors such as Susan Sontag and Erving Goffman. The new edition is more global in its coverage and adds material on genetic testing, the human genome, queer studies, and issues in developing countries. The size of the audience has grown since the first edition's publication, and the second edition's new material will make it even more useful for courses on the subject. Courses on the subject have mushroomed in the past ten years, and can now be found across the social sciences, humanities, and behavioral sciences.
