Emerging Thoughts in Disability and Humanness

(Hardback)

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Emerging Thoughts in Disability and Humanness examines the role of embodied disablement in providing an important but often circumvented analysis of the explicit and implicit nature of the legitimate human body, its symbolism, and responses that such bodies elicit from diverse local through global social and cultural entities. Beyond simply theorizing, this work begins to unearth a potent and in-depth examination of membership, meaning and social valuation on the basis of embodied features that include desirables in and exclude offending bodies from membership in the category of human. It invokes contemporary post-postmodernist marriages of varied disciplines as frameworks for returning creative substance into rethinking disability as part of the fabric of humanness.

Reviews

DePoy and Gilson delve into what it means to be human, with constructs of disability underpinning their work. Building on earlier thinking and publications they continue probing disability, humanity, and their intersections. Readers are invited to join their journey through humanness literacy, an expansive revision imagining of all bodies. Steven E. Brown, Retired Professor Disability Studies, University of Hawaii Center on Disability Studies, US; Co-Founder, Institute on Disability Culture.

Emerging Thoughts in Disability and Humanness introduces, defines and uses multiple theories to map the current ground of disability theory and the presentation of embodied life in a culture. It is focused on the purpose of theorizing to aid in successfully resolving barriers to develop practically embedded and participatory living for all bodies. Heather MacDuffie, Licensed Clinical Social Worker

"A considered blend of diverse voices, with a reasonable yet subversive stance. Exposing simplistic conventions, DePoy and Gilson open up a more nuanced discussion about disability objects and their appearance and therefore design." Graham Pullin, Professor of Design and Disability and Founder of Studio Ordinary, University of Dundee, UK

Author Bio

Elizabeth DePoy is a professor at the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, the School of Social Work and cooperating faculty in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maine. Within Disability Studies her teaching and scholarship focus on methods of inquiry and progressive analysis of disability.

Stephen Gilson is professor and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Disability Studies program in the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies and professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maine. His primary scholarship analyzes the role of design and aesthetics in creating disability as a human category.