Chapter 1 Critical Disability Studies in the Humanities
In: Disability and Dissensus: Strategies of Disability Representation and Inclusion in Contemporary CultureSearch for other papers by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson in
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Abstract
The chapter offers a comprehensive introduction to Critical Disability Studies in the humanities, a grass-roots scholarly movement that seeks to implement a new model of disability, which earlier gained recognition in social sciences, in academic fields such as: literary studies, performance studies, history, and philosophy. It delineates the major areas of interest explored by cds, which often overlap with gender, queer, posthuman, and postcolonial studies. It also explains how language and the new ways of speaking about disability may help question the naturalized concepts that have been shaping the various common, often ableist perceptions of disability. Furthermore, the chapter includes a thorough diachronic overview of the major models of disability. These are illustrated with a number of examples from various cultural and social contexts. The examples, however different, share a number of common premises upon which the models of disability have been founded and also show the ways in which contemporary artists and writers challenge and revise these models in their works.