The Thing. Daredevil. Captain Marvel. The Human Fly. Drawing on DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1990s, and marshaling insights from three burgeoning fields of inquiry in the humanities--disability studies, death and dying studies, and comics studies-- Jose Alaniz seeks to redefine the contemporary understanding of the superhero. Beginning in the Silver Age, the genre increasingly challenged and complicated its hypermasculine, quasi-eugenicist biases through such disabled figures as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and the Doom Patrol.

Alaniz traces how the superhero became increasingly vulnerable, ill, and mortal in this era. He then proceeds to a reinterpretation of characters and series--some familiar (Superman), some obscure (She-Thing). These genre changes reflected a wider awareness of related body issues in the postwar U.S. as represented by hospice, death with dignity, and disability rights movements. The persistent highlighting of the body's "imperfection" comes to forge a predominant aspect of the superheroic self. Such moves, originally part of the Silver Age strategy to stimulate sympathy, enhance psychological depth, and raise the dramatic stakes, developed further in such later series as "The Human Fly, Strikeforce: Morituri," and the landmark graphic novel "The Death of Captain Marvel," all examined in this volume. Death and disability, presumed routinely absent or denied in the superhero genre, emerge to form a core theme and defining function of the Silver Age and beyond."

Locates social attitudes towards blindness in a personal and cultural landscape. Is interdisciplinary in its crossing of lines among education, the humanities, and the social sciences. Includes case-studies from Canada, Cyprus, India, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, South America, and Spain.

The first volume presents a collection of exciting papers exploring several new areas of disability research. The contributions include: examination of the media representation of disability and coverage of disability policy issues which gives an understanding of the far reaching impact of the fourth estate; an historical analysis of the correspondence between the identifier of Down syndrome and Darwin that lends insights into the development of interpretations of mental retardation particularly Down syndrome as a throwback to the more primitive nature of man; analysis of hospital discharge data which demonstrates that persons with chronic conditions and impairments are more likely than those without to need hospitalization for injuries resulting from violence; and an overview of voting behavior among persons with disabilities. Subsequent volumes will focus on specific subjects related to disability issues.

'...this book makes a cogent yet impassioned argument that the discourse of care and caring is inappropriate...It deserves to be widely read, discussed and acted upon.' - Journal of Gender Studies;'The author...has produced a piece of research that not only needs to be read and acted upon by as many people as possible, but which is written in a style that is digestible and enjoyable to read.' - Jim Thomas, Nursing Times;'This is the clearest, most compelling book on what disabled people want from 'community care' that I have ever read,...it is destined to become one of the most influential pieces of writing in this area.' - S. Baldwin, Director, Social Policy Research Unit, York 'This is an important study which examines independent living both as the expressed wish of disabled people and as a central objective of Government policy...Let's hope all those involved in community care don't just read it but make sure it changes their provision and practice.' - Michael Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies, University of Greenwich 'This is quite simply a marvellous text. It will boost the morale of disabled people, and widen the thinking of non-disabled policy-makers and professional

Disability and Inequality:Socioeconomic Imperatives and Public Policy in Jamaica explores the lived experiences of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Jamaica, examining measurable socioeconomic deficits that establish PWDs are more likely to experience inferior education, training, and labor market outcomes compared to persons without disabilities. The author provides an evidence-based, theoretically grounded, and implementable public policy framework, called Framework of Key Determinants for Political and Socioeconomic Inclusion of PWDs, which advances anti-discrimination legislation and a twin-track policy schema with interconnected enablers of human rights. Using this framework, Jamaica, the Caribbean, and other Southern countries looking for methods and strategies to fulfill commitments set out by the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will find approaches to sustain existing progress, and address structural systemic deficits which continue to deny PWDs long-term sustainable development.

Contributions by Cynthia Neese Bailes, Nina Batt, Lijun Bi, Helene Charderon, Stuart Ching, Helene Ehriander, Xiangshu Fang, Sara Kersten-Parish, Helen Kilpatrick, Jessica Kirkness, Sung-Ae Lee, Jann Pataray-Ching, Angela Schill, Josh Simpson, John Stephens, Corinne Walsh, Nerida Wayland, and Vivian Yenika-Agbaw Children, Deafness, and Deaf Cultures in Popular Media examines how creative works have depicted what it means to be a deaf or hard of hearing child in the modern world. In this collection of critical essays, scholars discuss works that cover wide-ranging subjects and themes: growing up deaf in a hearing world, stigmas associated with deafness, rival modes of communication, friendship and discrimination, intergenerational tensions between hearing and nonhearing family members, and the complications of establishing self-identity in increasingly complex societies. Contributors explore most of the major genres of children's literature and film, including realistic fiction, particularly young adult novels, as well as works that make deft use of humor and parody. Further, scholars consider the expressive power of multimodal forms such as graphic novel and film to depict experience from the perspective of children. Representation of the point of view of child characters is central to this body of work and to the intersections of deafness with discourses of diversity and social justice. The child point of view supports a subtle advocacy of a wider understanding of the multiple ways of being D/deaf and the capacity of D/deaf children to give meaning to their unique experiences, especially as they find themselves moving between hearing and Deaf communities. These essays will alert scholars of children's literature, as well as the reading public, to the many representations of deafness that, like deafness itself, pervade all cultures and are not limited to specific racial or sociocultural groups.

What can society learn about disability through the way it is portrayed in TV, films and plays?

This insightful and accessible text explores and analyses the way disability is portrayed in drama, and how that portrayal may be interpreted by young audiences. Investigating how disabilities have been represented on stage in the past, this book discusses what may be inferred from plays which feature disabled characters through a variety of critical approaches.

In addition to the theoretical analysis of disability in dramatic literature, the book includes two previously unpublished playscripts, both of which have been performed by secondary school aged students and which focus on issues of disability and its effects on others. The contextual notes and discussion which accompany these plays and projects provide insights into how drama can contribute to disability education, and how it can give a voice to students who have special educational needs themselves.

Other features of this wide-ranging text include:

• an annotated chronology that traces the history of plays that have featured disabled characters
• an analysis of how disability is used as a dramatic metaphor
• consideration of the ethics of dramatising a disabled character
• critical accounts of units of work in mainstream school seeking to raise disability awareness through engagement with practical drama and dramatic texts
• a description and evaluation of a drama project in a special school.

In tackling questions and issues that have not, hitherto, been well covered, Drama, Disability and Education will be of enormous interest to drama students, teachers, researchers and pedagogues who work with disabled people or are concerned with raising awareness and understanding of disability.

This timely book is about raising awareness of the rights of disabled people to full equality and participation in all areas. It aims to show that disability is an issue of concern to all of us. It is for university faculty staff teaching courses on education law and policy and serves as a resource for students conducting research, government officials, and professionals in these fields.

This collection brings together scholarship and creative writing that brings together two of the most innovative fields to emerge from critical and cultural studies in the past few decades: Disability studies and performance studies. It draws on writings about such media as live performance art, photography, silent film, dance, personal narrative and theatre, using such diverse perspectives and methods as queer theory, gender, feminist, and masculinity studies, dance studies, as well as providing first publication of creative writings by award-winning poets and playwrights. This book was based on a special issue of Text and Performance Quarterly.

Parenting is always a vital and challenging task. Even more vital and challenging is the task of parenting a child with a disability. When there is more than one child in the family, all parents want to share their time, energy, and love with all their children--and all siblings sometimes wonder if they are being treated fairly. When one child in a family has a disability, all this becomes more complex. Parents and sisters and brothers often feel that for them, It isn't fair.

Selected and compiled from two decades of The Exceptional Parent magazine, "It Isn't Fair " reveals first-hand the myriad feelings of normal brothers and sisters at all stages as they grapple with caretaking, frustration, powerlessness, jealousy, guilt, and worry about their special siblings. Breaking the wall of silence that deference has imposed on their experiences, here are the siblings of the child with autism, the child injured at birth, the child institutionalized after many years at home. Parents offer their own experiences and perspectives on their children, and they illustrate the importance of sharing information within the family. The editors also include professional commentary.

This volume addresses a range of philosophical and ethical issues in adapted physical activity and disability sports participation more broadly. It is comprised of a range of essays by international scholars whose backgrounds embrace different traditions of philosophy, pedagogy and adapted physical activity. The principal aim of the symposium was to open up and critically explore a range of conceptual and ethical issues and perspectives that have arisen with respect to the engagement of persons with dis/abilities in a range of physical activity contexts including, but not exclusively located in, mainstream sporting activities. This book was published as a special issue in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

From the critique of 'the medical model' of disability undertaken during the early and mid-1990s, a 'social model' emerged, particularly in the caring professions and those trying to shape policy and practice for people with disability. In education and schooling, it was a period of cementing inclusive practices and the 'integration' and inclusion of disability into 'mainstream'. What was lacking in the debates around the social model, however, were the challenges to abledness that were being grappled with in the routine and pragmatics of self-care by people with disabilities, their families, carers and caseworkers. Outside the academy, new forms of activity and new questions were circulating. Challenges to abledness flourished in the arts and constituted the lived experience of many disability activists. Disability Matters engages with the cultural politics of the body, exploring this fascinating and dynamic topic through the arts, teaching, research and varied encounters with 'disability' ranging from the very personal to the professional. Chapters in this collection are drawn from scholars responding in various registers and contexts to questions of disability, pedagogy, affect, sensation and education. Questions of embodiment, affect and disability are woven throughout these contributions, and the diverse ways in which these concepts appear emphasize both the utility of these ideas and the timeliness of their application. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention. Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers: Different models and approaches to disability. How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline. Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism. Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies. Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing. Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138365308_oachapter6.pdf.

Since the emergence of disability studies over the last several decades, disability theorists have often settled for sweeping generalizations about "biblical" notions of disability. Yet, academic or critical biblical scholarship has shown that many texts involving disability in the Bible is much more nuanced than a casual reading or isolated proof texting may indicate. A primary goal of this volume is to familiarize a wide audience, including advanced students, scholars, clergy, and interested lay readers, with research on disability and the Bible done by scholars who specialize in biblical studies.

Disability Incarcerated gathers thirteen contributions from an impressive array of fields. Taken together, these essays assert that a complex understanding of disability is crucial to an understanding of incarceration, and that we must expand what has come to be called 'incarceration.' The chapters in this book examine a host of sites, such as prisons, institutions for people with developmental disabilities, psychiatric hospitals, treatment centers, special education, detention centers, and group homes; explore why various sites should be understood as incarceration; and discuss the causes and effects of these sites historically and currently. This volume includes a preface by Professor Angela Y. Davis and an afterword by Professor Robert McRuer.

This approachable study explores experiences of physical and mental impairment in Britain since the Industrial Revolution. Using literary, visual, and oral sources to complement documentary evidence, Anne Borsay pays particular attention to the testimonies of disabled people. Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750: - places disability policies within their historical context - examines citizenship and social exclusion from a historical perspective - sketches the key characteristics of modern industrial societies - focuses on the shifting mixed economy of welfare, the development of social rights and the construction of identity - assesses institutional living in workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and schools - appraises community living with reference to employment, financial relief and community care - reviews social policies post-1979 Borsay argues that disabled people were excluded from the full rights of citizenship because they were marginal to the labour market and suggests that history may play a role in raising personal and political consciousness. Containing illustrations, and clearly structured, this book is an ideal guide for all those with an interest in the history of disability and social policies.

Eliza Fricker gets it. Describing her perfectly imperfect experience of raising a PDA child, with societal judgements and internal pressures, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, resentful and alone. This book's comedic illustrations explain these challenging situations and feelings in a way that words simply cannot, will bring some much-needed levity back into PDA parenting. Humorous anecdotes with a compassionate tone remind parents that they are not alone, and they're doing a great job. If children are safe, happy, and you leave the house on time, who cares about some smelly socks? A light-hearted and digestible guide to being a PDA parent covering everything from tolerance levels, relationships and meltdowns to collaboration, flexibility, and self care to dip in and out as your schedule allows to help get to grips with this complex condition. This book is an essential read for any parent with a PDA child, to help better understand your child, build support systems and carve out some essential self care time guilt free.

When a harrowing heart attack and cardiac arrest robbed Alan's brain of vital oxygen, he lost his abilities to read, write, walk, talk, think, and remember. In a flash, Alan went from being a successful physics professor to a brain injury survivor fighting to relearn everything he once knew. So began seven years of intensive rehabilitation, re-creation, and redefining priorities and goals. Alan also faced the huge challenge of shaping a new identity and life. Above all, our book is the story of a marriage that transforms and triumphs, but is never defeated by catastrophic illness. In a memoir brimming with information, Janet explores the mysteries and miracles of their new world from her perspective as Alan's wife, Interpreter of the World, and rehab partner. Alan shares his eloquent tour of the shattered and healing universe inside his brain as few people can. "Professor Cromer Learns to Read" shows that it is possible for a person with an injured brain to continue to heal and improve for years with the right treatment. It is possible for love to thrive and adapt to challenging circumstances. It is possible to build a life with meaning and gusto even with a devastating illness. Our process of gracefully and grudgingly accepting the roles of chronically ill person and caregiver will resonate with many families. The universality of our situation transcends diagnosis and age to salute the human spirit. Please visit www.janetcromer.com to read advance praise for the book.

Beyond Bias offers the first scholarly study of contemporary right-wing documentary film and video. Drawing from contemporary work in political theory and psychoanalytic theory, the book identifies what author Scott Krzych describes as the hysterical discourse prolific in conservative documentary in particular, and right-wing media more generally. In its hysterical mode, conservative media emphasizes form over content, relies on the spectacle of debate to avoid substantive dialogue, mimics the aesthetic devices of its opponents, reduces complex political issues to moral dichotomies, and relies on excessive displays of opinion to produce so much mediated "noise" as to drown out alternative perspectives or viewpoints. Though often derided for its reliance on nonsense or hyperbole, conservative media marshals incoherence as its prized aesthetic and rhetorical weapon, a means to bolster the political status quo precisely by confusing those audiences who come into its orbit. As a work of documentary studies, Beyond Bias also places conservative non-fiction films in conversation with their more conventional counterparts, drawing insight from the manner by which conservative media hystericizes such issues as the archive, observational methods, directorial participation, and the often moral imperatives by which documentary filmmakers attempt to offer insight into their subjects.

Drawing on new empirical research with disabled people in the UK, and considering the work of theorists such as Berlin, Habermas and Mouffe, Ellison's ideas of proactive and defensive engagement and Turner's 'sociology of the body', Angharad Beckett proposes a new model of 'active' citizenship that rests upon an understanding of 'vulnerable personhood'.

This collection brings together scholarship and creative writing that brings together two of the most innovative fields to emerge from critical and cultural studies in the past few decades: Disability studies and performance studies. It draws on writings about such media as live performance art, photography, silent film, dance, personal narrative and theatre, using such diverse perspectives and methods as queer theory, gender, feminist, and masculinity studies, dance studies, as well as providing first publication of creative writings by award-winning poets and playwrights.

This book was based on a special issue of Text and Performance Quarterly.

This comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection, examines disability from a theoretical perspective, challenging views of disability that dominate mainstream thinking. Throughout, social theories of disability intersect with ideas associated with sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class and nation.

Performances in hospices and on beaches; cross-cultural myth making in Wales, New Zealand and the US; communal poetry among mental health system survivors: this book, now in paperback, presents a senior practitioner/critic's exploration of arts-based research processes sustained over more than a decade - a subtle engagement with disability culture.

In a readable and highly accessible ethnographic account that is shaped by the stories of families and the voices of parents, De Wolfe examines how parents of children with autism navigate the educational and medical systems, understand their own and their children's bodies, and support and educate one another.