Beginning with disability: a primer

While there are many introductions to disability and disability studies, most presume an advanced academic knowledge of a range of subjects. Beginning with Disability is the first introductory primer for disability studies aimed at first- and second-year students in two- and four-year colleges. This volume of essays across disciplines - including education, sociology, communications, psychology, social sciences, and humanities - features accessible, readable, relatively short chapters that do not require specialized knowledge. Lennard Davis, along with a team of consulting editors, has compiled a number of blogs, vlogs, and other videos to make the materials more relatable and vivid to students. "Subject to Debate" boxes spotlight short pro and con pieces on controversial subjects that can be debated in class or act as prompts for assignments. -- from back cover.

Part 1. Defining disability. Introduction / Lennard J. Davis -- Becoming disabled / Rosemarie Garland-Thomson -- Reassigning meaning / Simi Linton -- Disability rhetoric / Jay Dolmage -- A comparison of disability with race, sex, and sexual orientation statuses / Beth Omansky and Karen Rosenblum -- Neurodiversity rewires conventional thinking about brains / Steve Silberman -- Part 2. Deafness and deaf culture. Talking culture : deaf people and disability studies / Carol A. Padden -- Stop sharing those feel-good cochlear implant videos / Morgan Leahy -- "Everyone here spoke sign language" / Nora Groce -- Part 3. The history of disability. Disability history / Susan Burch and Kim E. Nielsen -- Defectives in the land : disability and American immigration policy, 1882-1924 / Douglas C. Baynton -- On the margins of citizenship : disability activism and the intellectually disabled / Allison C. Carey -- Part 4. Disability, Identity, and social justice. Disability and race / Nirmala Erevelles -- Coming to claim crip : disidentification with/in disability studies / Sami Schalk -- Moving toward the ugly : a politic beyond desirability / Mia Mingus -- What wounds enable : the politics of dis…