Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (Cultural Front) [Paperback]

Robert McRuer (Author), Michael Bérubé (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814757138 | ISBN-13: 978-0814757130 | Publication Date: June 1, 2006

Crip Theory attends to the contemporary cultures of disability and queerness that are coming out all over. Both disability studies and queer theory are centrally concerned with how bodies, pleasures, and identities are represented as “normal” or as abject, but Crip Theory is the first book to analyze thoroughly the ways in which these interdisciplinary fields inform each other.

Drawing on feminist theory, African American and Latino/a cultural theories, composition studies, film and television studies, and theories of globalization and counter-globalization, Robert McRuer articulates the central concerns of crip theory and considers how such a critical perspective might impact cultural and historical inquiry in the humanities. Crip Theory puts forward readings of the Sharon Kowalski story, the performance art of Bob Flanagan, and the journals of Gary Fisher, as well as critiques of the domesticated queerness and disability marketed by the Millennium March, or Bravo TV’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. McRuer examines how dominant and marginal bodily and sexual identities are composed, and considers the vibrant ways that disability and queerness unsettle and re-write those identities in order to insist that another world is possible.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Engaging, expansive, and generous.”
-Sex Roles

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“This well-annotated text invites the uninitiated reader to become involved, to reimagine previously held perceptions of what may be considered 'otherness,' to welcome disabilities, to access collectively other worlds and future possibilities.”
-Journal of American Studies

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“The members of the Committee were especially impressed by McRuer’s original intervention in the area of queer studies, one that not only sheds light on the important new area of disability studies, but brings it into conversation with a variety of disciplinary perspectives, from composition studies to performance art. McRuer’s book combines the public and the private work of queer studies in surprisingly new ways.”

-Ed Madden,Gay and Lesbian Caucus for the MLA

“McRuer charts new intersections for disability studies, queer studies, and American studies. His work is [at its] most vertiginous and rich . . . as he moves swiftly from cinema to street gangs to coming out Crip.”
-American Quarterly

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“A wonderful combination of humor, theory, intellectual, and personal insights . . . A valuable and well-written study.”
-Disability Studies Quarterly

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About the Author

Robert McRuer is Professor of English at The George Washington University. He is the author of The Queer Renaissance: Contemporary American Literature and the Reinvention of Lesbian and Gay Identities (also available from NYU Press) and co-editor, with Abby L. Wilkerson, of Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies, a special issue of GLQ.

Product Details

• Paperback: 299 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814757138
• ISBN-13: 978-0814757130
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #159,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Resistance, April 15, 2009

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tamiii "tamiii" (San Juan Capistrano, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (Cultural Front) (Paperback)

I read this about a year ago. It has taken me this long to digest and appreciate this intriguing book. When I first started to talk about it with older gay men, the reaction was visceral anger. Naturally, homosexual men have struggled against being classified as pathological, celebrating the elimination of homosexuality as a disorder from the psychiatrist's catalogue of pathologies. Some see it as a step backwards from the march toward assimilation, a goal which I do not share.

Yet, there has to be a realistic discussion about seropositivity and the struggles of those who likewise seek access but are barred for other 'disabilities.' Further, there are parallels to be found in class struggle, particularly the need in the U.S. for a national health plan, employment, housing, and the whole lot of things for which people are seeking 'access.'

The author here claims 'crip' in the same way that some claim 'queer.' They are labels applied to segregate out and strip people from access to the very things needed for survival. There is simply too much in common between the various and numerous abject peoples not to notice. Not least, the way in which those terms can be turned around, claimed, and used to resist.

This having been said, I am doubtful how much can be achieved in a classroom. As the old saying went: class consciousness is knowing which side you are on; class struggle is knowing who is there with you. This is a step toward recognizing allies.