Passing-an act usually associated with disguising race-also relates to disability. Whether a person classified as mentally ill struggles to suppress aberrant behavior to appear "normal" or a person intentionally takes on a disability identity to gain some advantage, passing is a pervasive and much-discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, Disability and Passing is the first anthology to examine this issue.
The editors and contributors to this volume explore the intersections of disability, race, gender, and sexuality as these various aspects of identity influence each other and make identity fluid. They argue that the line between disability and normality is blurred, discussing disability as an individual identity and as a social category. And they discuss the role of stigma in decisions about whether or not to pass.
Focusing on the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, the essays in Disability and Passing speak to the complexity of individual decisions about passing and open the conversation for broader discussion.
Passing-an act usually associated with disguising race-also relates to disability. Whether a person classified as mentally ill struggles to suppress aberrant behavior to appear "normal" or a person intentionally takes on a disability identity to gain some advantage, passing is a pervasive and much-discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, Disability and Passing is the first anthology to examine this issue.
The editors and contributors to this volume explore the intersections of disability, race, gender, and sexuality as these various aspects of identity influence each other and make identity fluid. They argue that the line between disability and normality is blurred, discussing disability as an individual identity and as a social category. And they discuss the role of stigma in decisions about whether or not to pass.
Focusing on the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, the essays in Disability and Passing speak to the complexity of individual decisions about passing and open the conversation for broader discussion.
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Jeffrey A. Brune and Daniel J. Wilson
2 Passing in the Shadow of FDR: Polio
Survivors, Passing, and the Negotiation of Disability
Daniel J. Wilson
3 The Multiple Layers of Disability Passing
in Life, Literature, and Public Discourse
Jeffrey A. Brune
4 The Menstrual Masquerade
David Linton
5 “I Made Up My Mind to Act Both Deaf and
Dumb”: Displays of Disability and Slave Resistance in the
Antebellum American South
Dea H. Boster
6 Passing as Sane, or How to Get People to
Sit Next to You on the Bus
Peta Cox
7 Athlete First: A Note on Passing, Disability, and Sport
Michael A. Rembis
8 The Sociopolitical Contexts of Passing and Intellectual
Disability
Allison C. Carey
9 Growing Up to Become Hearing: Dreams of Passing in Oral Deaf
Education
Kristen C. Harmon
Contributors
Index
Why passing is a crucial concept in disability studies
Jeffrey A. Brune is Assistant Professor of History at Gallaudet University. Currently he is working on his monograph, Disability Stigma and the Modern American State.
Daniel J. Wilson is Professor of History at Muhlenberg College. He is author of several books, including Polio: The Biography of a Disease, and Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors.
"[A]n important book. It takes one of the most complex and misunderstood concepts in disabilities studies and serves it up in a number of contexts that make it more concrete and understandable to the common reader... It provides both scholars and students with springboards to further research and a wealth of references to get them started... Wilson and Brune are to be congratulated." - Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, September 2013 "Collapsing normalization into passing may be the most important concept in this anthology, and the editors' selection of passing issues is on the mark... The anthology wonderfully complicates and adds depth to the whole notion of people with disabilities passing. Previously, scholars have been stuck with awkward metaphors of disability passing as similar to passing as white or passing as straight. The complications of race, sexuality, or gender are not neglected here, and make for a rich palette of ideas to be unpacked and explored. Summing Up: Highly recommended." - Choice, November 2013 "Disability and Passing is the first anthology to examine the phenomenon of 'passing' among people with disabilities... This collection offers a varied and thoughtful approach to understanding the challenges facing those with disabilities and the ways they manage a stigmatized identity through passing. A common theme in these essays is that passing strategies often place the burden of accommodating disabilities on the individuals themselves, rather than on the society that does not accept them. Disability and Passing places these challenges in historical and social context and encourages further research in this new area of study." - Contemporary Sociology
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