Cultural Disability Studies in Education: Interdisciplinary Navigations of the Normative Divide

by David Bolt

Overview

Over the last few decades disability studies has emerged not only as a discipline in itself but also as a catalyst for cultural disability studies and Disability Studies in Education. In this book the three areas become united in a new field that recognises education as a discourse between tutors and students who explore representations of disability on the levels of everything from academic disciplines and knowledge to language and theory; from received understandings and social attitudes to narrative and characterisation.

Moving from late nineteenth to early twenty-first-century representations, this book combines disability studies with aesthetics, film studies, Holocaust studies, gender studies, happiness studies, popular music studies, humour studies, and media studies. In so doing it encourages discussion around representations of disability in drama, novels, films, autobiography, short stories, music videos, sitcoms, and advertising campaigns. Discussions are underpinned by the tripartite model of disability and so disrupt one-dimensional representations.

Cultural Disability Studies in Education encourages educators and students to engage with disability as an isolating, hurtful, and joyful experience that merits multiple levels of representation and offers true potential for a non-normative social aesthetic. It will be required reading for all scholars and students of disability studies, cultural disability studies, Disability Studies in Education, sociology, and cultural studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351593441
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/06/2018
Series:	ISSN
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	134
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David Bolt is Professor in the Department of Disability and Education at Liverpool Hope University, UK, where he is also Director of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies; a series editor of Literary Disability Studies; and a general editor of A Cultural History of Disability. Previous books include The Madwoman and the Blindman (2012); The Metanarrative of Blindness (2014); Changing Social Attitudes Toward Disability (Routledge, 2014); and Disability, Avoidance, and the Academy (Routledge, 2016).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Cultural Disability Studies in Education: Fields, Representations, and Social Aesthetics; Chapter 1: Visions from the Yellow Decade: Disability, Aesthetics, and Residual Existence Chapter 2: From Sideshow to Cinema: Disability, Film, and Horrification; Chapter 3: Remembering the Drowned and the Saved: Disability, Holocaust, and the Inadequacies of Representation; Chapter 4: In the Log House: Disability, Gender, and Resistance to Social Norms; Chapter 5: Stuff Happens: Disability, Happiness, and the Pursuit of Cure; Chapter 6: End of the Rock Star: Disability, Music, and the Passage of Time; Chapter 7: One of the Crowd: Disability, Humour, and the Contradictions of Comedy; Chapter 8: On the Campaign Trail: Disability, Mass Media, and Levels of Representation; Epilogue; Glossary of Terms; Index

Editorial Reviews

'David Bolt is one of the foundational scholars working in critical disability studies, and the clear and concise outline of disability and education here showcases his extensive knowledge of the field. Well-written, accessible, and with a wide range of examples from across disciplines, this book is essential reading for everyone working in the subject areas on which it focuses.' - Professor Stuart Murray, Director, Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leeds

Though the book was composed in the UK, its use is broader. Bolt clarifies terminology for UK and US audiences, and the book will benefit an audience of students and newer scholars, as well, due to its extensive but focused use of core terminology (supported by a glossary of 17 key terms), the artful illustration of concepts, and the well-researched bibliographies at the end of each chapter. Overview of critiques and interpretations of the primary texts, of interdisciplinary fields, and of Disability Studies concepts (like embodiment, narrative prosthesis, Speech Act theory, and performativity (51)), are especially instructive. Disability Studies Quarterly 40:1 2020.

The best thing about this book is that it can possibly inform and reform a seemingly limitless number of critical cultural conversations. In addition to the scholarly takeaways this book offers, however, is the potential for more community and relational equity in cultural learning environments by inviting cripistemology into the conversation, not just as a valid discourse, but as a guiding one. Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 14:1 2020.

From the Publisher