Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies #9.5

by Robert McRuer (Introduction), Abby L. Wilkerson

In multiple locations, activists and scholars are mapping the intersections of queer theory and disability studies, moving issues of embodiment and desire to the center of cultural and political analyses. The two fields are premised on the idea that the categories of heterosexual/homosexual and able-bodied/disabled are historically and socially constructed. Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies explores how the frameworks for queer theory and disability studies suggest new possibilities for one another, for other identity-based frameworks of activism and scholarship, and for cultural studies in general.

Topics include the study of "crip theory" and queer/disabled performance artists; the historical emergence of normalcy and parallel notions of military fitness that require both the production and the containment of queerness and disability; and butch identity, transgressive sexual practices, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Contributors: Sarah E. Chinn, Eli Clare, Naomi Finkelstein, Catherine Lord, Cris Mayo, Robert McRuer, Todd Ramlow, Jo Rendell, Ellen Samuels, Carrie Sandahl, David Serlin, Patrick White

Genres: Disability, Queer, Disability Studies, Nonfiction, Theory, LGBT, Gender Studies

338 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Robert McRuer is a Professor of English at George Washington University. His work focuses on queer and crip cultural studies and critical theory.

--from the author's website