Suggested sources
Disability and Other Human Questions by
DAN GOODLEY draws on two decades of research and writing and weaves personal stories, scholarly literature, social media and other cultural narratives together with concepts from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies. His argument is simple: disability invites great insight into the wider project of understanding the human condition. Goodley argues that the study of disability is of great importance in its own right but also has much to offer us all in considering what it means to be human in the 21st Century. Chapters address questions such as 'who's allowed to be human?'; 'are human beings dependent?'; and 'what does it mean to be human in the digital age?' and respond to these questions in ways that get us thinking about how we might productively engage with, listen to and understand one another.
ISBN: 9781839827075Publication Date: 2020-11-04
Being Heumann by
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction "...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."-- Buzzfeed One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism--from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington--Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy's struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples' rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.
ISBN: 9780807019290Publication Date: 2020-02-25
Falling for Myself by
In this searing and seriously funny memoir, Dorothy Ellen Palmer falls down, a lot, and spends a lifetime learning to appreciate her disability. Born with two very different, very tiny feet, she was adopted as a toddler by an already wounded 1950s family. From childhood surgeries to decades as a feminist teacher, mom, improv coach and unionist, she tried to hide being different. But now, standing proud with her walker, she's sharing her journey. Navigating abandonment, abuse and ableism, she finds her birth parents and a new chosen family in the disability community.
ISBN: 9781989496039Publication Date: 2019-11-25
Upstairs in the crazy house : the life of a psychiatric survivor by
Pat Capponi is a psychiatric survivor. Ejected after three months from a mental health institution, she was sent to one of Toronto's notorious boarding houses. In Upstairs in the Crazy House, she relates the stories of those who called the appalling institution home.
Capponi also reveals how she suffered as a child at the hands of an abusive father and how, although she excelled academically, the repercussions of an adolescence infused with violence caused her to sink into deep depressions.
Call Number: RC464.C36 A3 1992ISBN: 0670838985Publication Date: 1992
Year of the tiger : an activist's life by
Drawing on a collection of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more, Alice uses her unique talent to share an impressionistic scrapbook of her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. From her love of food and pop culture to her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism, Alice shares her thoughts on creativity, access, power, care, the pandemic, mortality, and the future. As a self-described disabled oracle, Alice traces her origins, tells her story, and creates a space for disabled people to be in conversation with one another and the world. Filled with incisive wit, joy, and rage, Wong's Year of the Tiger will galvanize readers with big cat energy.
Call Number: RC935.A8 W66 2022ISBN: 9780593315408Publication Date: 2022
A Whisper Past - Childless after Eugenic Sterilization in Alberta by
Leilani Muir was severely abused by her mother, who told many lies in order to have her daughter admitted to the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer at the age of 11 and branded a moron. But Muir never was mentally defective and never should have been in that institution in the first place. Because of a terrible injustice, a normal child became an insider in a mental institution and is now able to convey to us what life was like there in the 1950s. She tells about how she was briefly questioned by the Alberta Eugenics Board and then sterilized by two clumsy physicians under the guise of having her appendix removed. The agony of her many later attempts to have the sterilization operation reversed is described in detail. She eventually launched a lawsuit against the Alberta government and won an important judgement that led to compensation being paid to hundreds of other victims. After the trial, she became a public figure and continues to speak against all forms of child abuse and discrimination against the disabled. This is Leilani Muir's story in her own words....
Call Number: HQ755.5C3M84 2014ISBN: 9781460234693Publication Date: 2014-03-01
Disability Visibility by
ONE OF THE PROGRESSIVE'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent--but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people. From Harriet McBryde Johnson's account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.
ISBN: 9781984899422Publication Date: 2020-06-30
From the Periphery by
From the Periphery consists of nearly forty first-person narratives from activists and everyday people who describe what it's like to be treated differently by society because of their disabilities. Their stories are raw and painful but also surprisingly funny and deeply moving-describing anger, independence, bigotry, solidarity, and love, in the family, at school, and in the workplace. Inspired by the oral historians Studs Terkel and Svetlana Alexievich, From the Periphery will become a classic oral history collection that increases the understanding of the lived experiences of people with disabilities, their responses to oppression, and the strategies they use to fight for empowerment.
ISBN: 9781641601580Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Physical Disability and Sexuality by
This open access edited volume explores physical disability and sexuality in South Africa, drawing on past studies, new research conducted by the editors, and first-person narratives from people with physical disabilities in the country. Sexuality has long been a site of oppression and discrimination for people with disabilities based on myths and misconceptions, and this book explores how these play out for people with physical disabilities in the South African setting. One myth with which the book is centrally concerned, is that people with disabilities are unable to have sex, or are seen as lacking sexuality by society at large. Societal understandings of masculinity, femininity, bodies and attractiveness, often lead people with physical disabilities to be seen as being undesirable romantic or sexual partners. The contributions in this volume explore how these prevailing social conditions impact on the access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, involvement in romantic relationships, childbearing, and sexual citizenship as a whole, of people with physical disabilities in the Western Cape of the country. The authors' research, and first person contributions by people with physical disabilities themselves, suggest that education and public health policy must change, if the sexual and reproductive health rights and full inclusion of people with disabilities are to be achieved.
ISBN: 9783030555665Publication Date: 2021-02-09
Disability Experiences by
Disability Experience: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Other Personal Narratives presents essays on 200 narrative works written by persons with disabilities. The disabilities covered are mostly physical, but psychological/psychiatric conditions, developmental/intellectual impairments, and addiction are also included. While most are written by disabled persons themselves, a small number of biographies and family memoirs (such as those written by parents or spouses) were included when the advisory board felt they were important contributions to communicating the disability experience.
The works date from as early as 1470 to as recent as 2018. While most of the authors are from the US, one-third of the works are by authors from elsewhere around the globe. Care was also given to represent a wide range of other cultures, heritage, and lifestyles, in areas such as religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, color, and other factors that, along with disability, constitute intersectional experiences. At least half the works included represent such at least one diversity factor.
All entries are signed, and each begins with a brief summary of the work and list of key information. The body of each essay provides an overview of the work and the subject¿s life, and discussion of historical and cultural context, themes, and critical reception. All essays have one or two sidebars and a bibliography; half also have a photo.
The work includes a pedagogical piece from the editor that discusses ways the contents can be used in the classroom. This is followed by a three-part thematic outline organizing the entries by disabilities and conditions that are represented in the works; by formats other than autobiography or memoir, such as graphic memoir or poetry; and by other themes, both disability-related and other.
The volume also includes a subject index and a list of other recommended memoirs and anthologies not covered within.
ISBN: 9781410388070Publication Date: 2019-06-01
Tools to discover podcasts
Listen Notes (has premium features)
A few recommendations
Podcast series:
Irresistible (fka Healing Justice Podcast)
Individual episodes:
Coffee with Comrades: Episode 165 "Toward an Anarchist Critique of Psychiatry"
A keyword search for "disability" in NFB One, limited to "Documentary". There are various options for access, including free streaming for many.
- Fixed : the science/fiction of human enhancement byCall Number: RA418.5.M4 F59 2013Publication Date: 2013
- Sins invalid : an unshamed claim to beauty in the face of invisibility. by Sins Invalid witnesses a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists. Since 2006, its performances have explored themes of sexuality, beauty, and the disabled body, impacting thousands through live performance. Sins Invalid is as an entryway into the absurdly taboo topic of sexuality and disability, manifesting a new paradigm of disability justice.Call Number: PN1590.H36 S56 2015Publication Date: 2014
- Shameless : the art of disability by Art, activism and disability are the starting point for what unfolds as a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals. Shameless: the Art of Disability marks Klein's return to a career interrupted by a catastrophic stroke in 1987. Always the activist, she now turns the lens on the world of disability culture, and ultimately, the transformative power of art. Joining Klein are a group of artists with diverse (dis)abilities. Humourist David Roche is taking his one man show, The Church of 80% Sincerity, to New York's off-Broadway. Poet and scholar Catherine Frazee is navigating a jam-packed schedule of teaching and speaking engagements. Dancer, choreographer and impresario Geoff McMurchy is organizing KickstART, an international festival of disability art. Sculptor and writer Persimmon Blackbridge is creating mixed media portraits from "meaningful junk". Klein gathers these artists for a pyjama party where they take a subversive look at Hollywood stereotypes of people with disabilities: The Monster, The Saint, The Psycho, the Poor Little Crippled Girl, etc. The artists decide to turn the tables, making a pact to meet a year later at the KicksART Festival with the intent of creating their own images of disability. The film tracks this motley gang of five from the BC Gulf Islands, to Nova Scotia and south to San Francisco while they create and then present their multi-faceted self-representations. As we get to know each of these remarkable people driven by a passion for art and transformation, the everyday complexities and unexpected richness of life with a disability are exposed.Call Number: HV1568 .S45 2006Publication Date: 2006
What does it mean to be disabled and desirable?
In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse.
Social media is a rich source of data. There are a myriad of ways to do research with data mined from social media ; the following are some recommended sources that take up different approaches and aspects of doing research with social media.
Losh, Elizabeth. (2019). Hashtag. Bloomsbury Academic.
Jackson, S. J., Bailey, M., & Welles, B. F. (2020). HashtagActivism: Networks of race and gender justice. The MIT Press.
Barrie, C. (Academic). (2022). Getting and analyzing Twitter data for academic research [Video]. SAGE Research Methods. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529602289
Sloan, L., & Quan-Haase, A. (2016). The SAGE Handbook of social media research methods. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://dx.