Research Guides: Disability Studies: Disability Studies

Disability Studies: Introduction

This guide will help you find published scholarship (essays, books, chapters, journal articles, etc.) and primary source material on a topic.

Choose a topic that interests you and fits within your assignment's parameters.
Read good summaries of the topic in subject encyclopedias, like those listed below, to gain a basic overview of your topic.
Search for published scholarship in library discovery systems, catalogs, databases, scholarly & research organizations, etc.
Identify primary source material (e. g. documents & records, art & artifacts, personal narratives & memoirs, data & statistics, maps & charts, photographs & illustrations, etc.) through your scholarly readings, and by searching or browsing the digital collections of libraries, archives, museums, and other scholarly & research organizations.

Remember to evaluate the accuracy of your sources, and think critically about their content and arguments.

For remote login to the Library's electronic resources, see our instructions for Off-Campus Access.

Remember to talk about your project with your instructor!

Disability Studies: Background Reading

Subject encyclopedias and other reference guides can provide good background information on a topic.

Arts and Humanities by Brenda Jo Brueggemann
ISBN: 9781412988186
Publication Date: 2012-08-23
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores the arts and humanities within the lives of people with disabilities, and is one of eight volumes in the cross-disciplinary and issues-based series...Taken individually, each volume sets out the fundamentals of the topic it addresses, accompanied by compiled data and statistics, recommended further readings, a guide to organizations and associations, and other annotated resources, thus providing the ideal introductory platform and gateway for further study. Taken together, the series represents both a survey of major disability issues and a guide to new directions and trends and contemporary resources in the field as a whole."
Assistive Technology and Science by Cathy Bodine
ISBN: 9781412987981
Publication Date: 2012-12-20
This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores issues involving assistive technology engineering and science..."
Disability Rights, Benefits, and Support Services Sourcebook by Angela L. Williams (Managing editor)
ISBN: 9780780817647
Publication Date: 2019-09-16
"Provides basic consumer health information about barriers faced by people with disabilities, disability rights movement, right to education, housing, employment, voting, access to medical care, and transportation, as well as Social Security disability insurance, tax exemption, coverage option, and compensation. Includes directory of organizations for people with disabilities."
Disability Studies by Colin Cameron (Editor)
ISBN: 9781446267660
Publication Date: 2014-01-23
"This textbook brings together a wide range of expert voices from the field of disability studies and the disabled people's movement to tackle the essential topics relevant to this area of study. From the outset disability is discussed from a social model perspective, demonstrating how future practice and discourse could break down barriers and lead to more equal relationships for disabled people in everyday life..."
Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities by Sarah Jaquette Ray (Editor); Jay Sibara (Editor); Stacy Alaimo (Foreword by)
ISBN: 1496201698
Publication Date: 2017-06-01
"Designed as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities employs interdisciplinary perspectives to examine such issues as slow violence, imperialism, race, toxicity, eco-sickness, the body in environmental justice, ableism, and other topics. With a historical scope spanning the seventeenth century to the present, this collection not only presents the foundational documents informing this intersection of fields but also showcases the most current work, making it an indispensable reference."
The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis (Editor)
ISBN: 9781138930223
Publication Date: 2016-11-01
"The fifth edition of The Disability Studies Reader addresses the post-identity theoretical landscape by emphasizing questions of interdependency and independence, the human-animal relationship, and issues around the construction or materiality of gender, the body, and sexuality. [...] The collection addresses physical disabilities, but as always investigates issues around pain, mental disability, and invisible disabilities as well."
Disability Through the Life Course by Tamar Heller; Sarah K. Parker Harris
ISBN: 9781412987677
Publication Date: 2011-11-29
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores issues involving disability through the life courses..."
Education by Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell; Lana Collet-Klingenberg
ISBN: 9781412986908
Publication Date: 2011-08-04
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores education issues for people with disabilities..."
Employment and Work by Susanne Marie Bruyère; Linda Barrington
ISBN: 9781412992923
Publication Date: 2012-09-27
This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores issues facing people with disabilities in employment and the work environment..."
Encyclopedia of Disability by Gary L. Albrecht (Editor)
ISBN: 9780761925651
Publication Date: 2005-10-07
"Volumes 1-4 cover disability A to Z, including a reader's guide, comprehensive bibliography, and index. Volume 5 contains a wealth of primary source documents in the field of disability."
Ethics, Law, and Policy by Jerome E. Bickenbach
ISBN: 9781412987479
Publication Date: 2012-01-03
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores ethical, legal, and policy issues of people with disabilities..."
Health and Medicine by Ross M. Mullner
ISBN: 9781412981101
Publication Date: 2011-06-28
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores health and medical issues for people with disabilities..."
Rehabilitation Interventions by Margaret A. Turk; Nancy R. Mudrick
ISBN: 9781412994910
Publication Date: 2012-10-25
"This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores issues involving rehabilitation interventions and therapies..."

Disability Studies: Scholarly Books

OneSearch; Search for printed and electronic scholarly books at QC and other CUNY libraries.
WorldCat: Search for scholarly books in the national catalog for the United States and Canada. Includes holdings from libraries in other parts of the world, primarily European or English-speaking.

Law and Academia

Ableism in Academia by Nicole Brown (Editor); Jennifer Leigh (Editor)
ISBN: 9781787354982
Publication Date: 2020-10-13
"Ableism in Academia provides an interdisciplinary outlook on ableism that is currently missing. Through reporting of research data and exploring personal experiences, the contributors explore the concept of what it means to be and to work outside the so-called norm."
Academic Ableism by Jay T. Dolmage
ISBN: 9780472900725
Publication Date: 2017-12-05
"Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. [...] Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all."
Disability Harassment by Mark C. Weber
ISBN: 9780814794050
Publication Date: 2007-03-01
"The book considers courts' approaches to the problem of disability harassment, particularly the application of an analogy to race and sex harassment and the development of legal remedies and policy reforms under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While litigation under the ADA has addressed discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and education, Weber points out that the law has done little to combat disability harassment. He recommends that arguments based on unused provisions of the ADA should be developed and new legal remedies advanced to address the problem."
Disability Human Rights and the Limits of Humanitarianism by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials; Michael Gill
ISBN: 1472420926
Publication Date: 2014-06-11
"Contemporary human rights discourses problematically co-opt disabled bodies as 'evidence' of harms done under capitalism, war, and other forms of conflict, while humanitarian non-governmental organizations often use disabled bodies to generate resources for their humanitarian projects. It is the connection between civil rights and human rights, and the concomitant relationship between national and global, which foregrounds this book's contention that disability studies productively challenge such human rights paradigms, which troublingly eschew disability rights in favor of exclusionary humanitarianism."
Disability Studies by Tim Corcoran (Volume Editor); Julie White (Volume Editor); Ben Whitburn (Volume Editor)
ISBN: 9789463001977
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
"Education systems worldwide will only successfully serve the needs of people with disability when we inclusively examine and address disabling issues that currently exist at school level education as well as further and higher education and beyond. The chapters contributing to this edited volume are presented to assist readers with a critical examination of contemporary practice and offer a concerted response to improving inclusive education."
Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement by Samuel R. Bagenstos
ISBN: 9780300124491
Publication Date: 2009-06-23
"In this timely book, Samuel R. Bagenstos examines the history of the movement and discusses the various, often-conflicting projects of diverse participants. He argues that while the courts deserve some criticism, some may also be fairly aimed at the choices made by prominent disability rights activists as they crafted and argued for the ADA. The author concludes with an assessment of the limits of antidiscrimination law in integrating and empowering people with disabilities, and he suggests new policy directions to make these goals a reality."
Rights of Inclusion by David M. Engel; Frank W. Munger
ISBN: 9780226208312
Publication Date: 2002-06-15
"Based on eye-opening and deeply moving interviews with intended beneficiaries of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), David M. Engel and Frank W. Munger argue for a radically new understanding of rights-one that focuses on their role in everyday lives rather than in formal legal claims."
Seeking to Understand by Robin Brown; Scott Sheidlower
ISBN: 9781634001069
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
"This can be seen as not only academic research but also emancipatory research, since we seek to change the world. [...] Our hope is that this book will offer affirmation to anyone who is a disabled library worker. It is also intended to be a resource anyone who works with or supervises a disabled library worker."
Sociology Looking at Disability by Sara E. Green (Editor); Sharon N. Barnartt (Editor)
ISBN: 1786354780
Publication Date: 2016-12-22
"While theorists and introductory textbooks have tended (and still tend) to ignore disability as a non-medical phenomenon and especially as a structured source of inequality, that does not mean that no attention was paid to disability in the earlier years. Rather, interest in disability from a sociological point of view exists as early as the late 1800s. The purpose of this volume is to explore that literature, with an eye towards encouraging current scholars not to ask 'the same old' questions but to use the older writings as a basis for revolutionary as well as evolutionary thinking."

Policy and Social Relations

Crip Times: Disability, Globalization, and Resistance by Robert McRuer
ISBN: 9781479874156
Publication Date: 2018-01-16
"Contends that disability is a central but misunderstood element of global austerity politics. Broadly attentive to the political and economic shifts of the last several decades, Robert McRuer asks how disability activists, artists and social movements generate change and resist the dominant forms of globalization in an age of austerity, or 'crip times.'"
Disability and Care Work by Upali Chakravarti
ISBN: 9353880629
Publication Date: 2020-11-18
"Disability and Care Work: State, Society and Invisible Lives explores the lived reality of children with disabilities and those involved in parenting and caring for them. It discusses the extent to which the needs of the disabled and their caregivers have been met by health and welfare initiatives, and finds substantial gaps."
From Good Will to Civil Rights by Richard Scotch
ISBN: 1439901007
Publication Date: 2009-03-16
"Now that curb cuts, braille elevator buttons, and closed caption television are commonplace, many people assume that disabled people are now full participants in American society. This book tells a rather different story. It tells how America's disabled mobilized to effect sweeping changes in public policy, not once but twice, and it suggests that the struggle is not yet over."
Politics of Empowerment by David Pettinicchio
ISBN: 9781503600874
Publication Date: 2019-09-17
"In Politics of Empowerment, David Pettinicchio offers a historically grounded analysis of the singular case of U.S. disability policy, countering long-held views of progress that privilege public demand as its primary driver. [...] Drawing on extensive archival material, Pettinicchio redefines the relationship between grassroots advocacy and institutional politics, revealing a cycle of progress and backlash embedded in the American political system."
The Disability Rights Movement by Doris Fleischer; Frieda Zames
ISBN: 9781439907443
Publication Date: 2011-06-03
"The authors provide a probing analysis of such topics as deinstitutionalization, housing, health care, assisted suicide, employment, education, new technologies, disabled veterans, and disability culture. Based on interviews with over one hundred activists, The Disability Rights Movementte is a complex and compelling story of an ongoing movement that seeks to create an equitable and diverse society, inclusive of people with disabilities."
The Politics of Disablement: A Sociological Approach by Michael Oliver
ISBN: 9780312046583
Publication Date: 1990-09-01
"This book, by an author who is himself disabled, looks at the individualized and medicalized views of disability and describes the way they have been produced in capitalist society. Further, it then analyzes the possibilities for achieving political change within this current era of late capitalism and the significance of the emergent disability movement as part of this process of change."
Why I Burned My Book by Paul K. Longmore
ISBN: 1281093599
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
"This wide-ranging book shows why Paul Longmore is one of the most respected figures in disability studies today. Understanding disability as a major variety of human experience, he urges us to establish it as a category of social, political, and historical analysis in much the same way that race, gender, and class already have been."

Identity, Representation, and Theory

Ableism: the Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice by Michelle R. Nario-Redmond
ISBN: 1119142121
Publication Date: 2019-08-29
"This comprehensive volume examines new manifestations of ableism, summarizes the state of research on disability prejudice, and explores real-world personal accounts and interventions to illustrate the various forms and impacts of ableism. This important contribution to the field combines evidence from multiple theoretical perspectives, including published and unpublished work from both disabled and nondisabled constituents, on the causes, consequences, and elimination of disability prejudice."
Addressing Ableism by Jennifer Scuro; Devonya N. Havis (As told to); Lydia X. Z. Brown (As told to); Joel Michael Reynolds (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781498540742
Publication Date: 2017-10-25
"By explicating concepts like experience, diagnosis, precariousness, and prosthesis, Scuro maps out the institutionalized and intergenerational forms of this bias as it is analogous and yet also distinct from other kinds of dehumanization, discrimination, and oppression. This project also includes a dialogical chapter on intersectionality with Devonya Havis and Lydia Brown, a philosopher and writer/activist respectively."
Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepznia-Samarasinha
ISBN: 9781551527383
Publication Date: 2018-10-30
Lambda Literary Award winning poet and essayist and long-time disability justice advocate Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha writes passionately and personally about disability justice in her latest book of essays. Discussing subjects such as the creation of care webs, collective access, and radically accessible spaces, she also imparts her own survivor skills and wisdom based on her years of activist work, empowering the disabled--in particular, those in queer and/or BIPOC communities--and granting them the necessary tools by which they can imagine a future where no one is left behind.
Concerto for the Left Hand by Michael Davidson
ISBN: 1282597612
Publication Date: 2013-09-25
"Probes questions of disability and aesthetics across a range of art forms, from Deaf poetry to film noir."
Dis/ability Studies by Dan Goodley
ISBN: 9780415827218
Publication Date: 2014-05-02
"Goodley argues that we are entering a time of dis/ability studies, when both categories of disability and ability require expanding upon as a response to the global politics of neoliberal capitalism. Divided into two parts, the first section traces the dual processes of ableism and disablism, suggesting that one cannot exist without the other, and makes the case for a research-driven and intersectional analysis of dis/ability. The second section applies this new analytical framework to a range of critical topics..."
Disability, Media, and Representations by Jacob Johanssen (Editor); Diana Garrisi (Editor)
ISBN: 0429890176
Publication Date: 2020-02-27
"Bringing together scholars from around the world to research the intersection between media and disability, this edited collection aims to offer an interdisciplinary exploration and critique of print, broadcast and online representations of physical and mental impairments. Drawing on a wide range of case studies addressing how people can be 'othered' in contemporary media, the chapters focus on analyses of hateful discourses about disability on Reddit, news coverage of disability and education, media access of individuals with disabilities, the logic of memes and brain tumour on Twitter, celebrity and Down Syndrome on Instagram, disability in TV drama, the metaphor of disability for the nation; as well as an autoethnography of treatment of breast cancer."
Disability, Health, Law, and Bioethics by I. Glenn Cohen (Editor); Carmel Shachar (Editor); Anita Silvers (Editor); Michael Ashley Stein (Editor)
ISBN: 9781108485975
Publication Date: 2020-04-23
"In this collection, the authors explore the impact that the philosophical framing of disability can have on public policy questions, in the clinic, in the courtroom, and elsewhere. They examine the implications of this understanding for legal and policy approaches to disability, strategies for allocating and accessing health care, the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, health care rights, and other legal tools designed to address discrimination."
Disabled Theater by Sandra Umathum (Editor); Benjamin Wihstutz (Editor)
ISBN: 9783037345245
Publication Date: 2015-07-15
"Using 'Disabled Theater' as the basis for a broad, interdisciplinary discussion of performance and disability, this volume explores the intersections of politics and aesthetics, inclusion and exclusion, and identity and empowerment. Can the stage serve as a place of emancipation for people with disabilities?"
Living the Edges by Diane Driedger (Editor)
ISBN: 9781926708171
Publication Date: 2010-11-15
"This collection brings together the diverse voices of women with various disabilities, both physical and mental. The women speak frankly about the societal barriers they encounter in their everyday lives due to social attitudes and physical and systemic inaccessibility. They bring to light the discrimination they experience through sexism, because they are women, and through ableism, because they have disabilities."
Nothing about Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment by James I. Charlton
ISBN: 1280090472
Publication Date: 1998-01-01
"James Charlton has produced a ringing indictment of disability oppression, which, he says, is rooted in degradation, dependency, and powerlessness and is experienced in some form by five hundred million persons throughout the world who have physical, sensory, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. "Nothing About Us Without Us" is the first book in the literature on disability to provide a theoretical overview of disability oppression that shows its similarities to, and differences from, racism, sexism, and colonialism."
Reading and Writing Disability Differently by Tanya Titchkosky
ISBN: 9781442683839
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
"Mixing rigorous social theory with concrete analysis, Reading and Writing Disability Differently unpacks the marginality of disabled people by addressing how the meaning of our bodily existence is configured in everyday literate society. […] Incorporating a textual analysis of ordinary depictions of disability, this innovative study promises to represent embodied differences in new ways and alter our imaginative relations to the politics of the body.”
Recovering Disability in Early Modern England by Allison P. Hobgood (Editor); David Houston Wood
ISBN: 9780814212158
Publication Date: 2013-05-15
"While early modern selfhood has been explored during the last two decades via a series of historical identity studies involving class, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality, until very recently there has been little engagement with disability and disabled selves in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. [...] Recovering Disability in Early Modern England explores how recent conversations about difference in the period have either overlooked or misidentified disability representations. It also presents early modern disability studies as a new theoretical lens..."
Sex, Identity, Aesthetics by Jina B. Kim (Editor); Joshua Kupetz (Editor); Crystal Yin Lie (Editor); Cynthia Wu (Editor)
ISBN: 9780472902477
Publication Date: 2021-10-12
"'Sex, Identity, Aesthetics: The Work of Tobin Siebers and Disability Studies' uses Siebers' work as a launchpad for thinking about contemporary disability studies. The editors provide an overview of Siebers' research to show how it has contributed to humanistic understandings of ability and disability along three key axes: sex, identity, and aesthetics."

Personal Narratives and Oral Histories

A Healing Family by Kenzaburô Ôe
ISBN: 9784770020482
Publication Date: 1996-11-01
"This text presents an intimate portrait of Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe's handicapped son, the unexpected courage that can be found in everyone and the meaning of family."
Disability Experiences by G. Thomas Couser; Susannah B. Mintz
ISBN: 9781410388070
Publication Date: 2019-06-01
"Presents essays on 200 narrative works written by persons with disabilities. [...] 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. [...] The work includes a pedagogical piece from the editor that discusses ways the contents can be used in the classroom. [...] Includes a subject index and a list of other recommended memoirs and anthologies not covered within."
From the Periphery by Pia Justesen; Tom Harkin (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781641601580
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
"'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."
What We Have Done by Fred Pelka
ISBN: 9781558499188
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
"Compelling first-person accounts of the struggle to secure equal rights for Americans with disabilities."

Disability Studies: Streaming Videos

Brett: A Life with No Arms by Roger Graf, director
Publication Date: 2015
"This incredibly moving film sees BAFTA-award winning filmmaker Roger Graef travel to Australia to reconnect with Brett Nielsen who, 50 years ago, was the subject of Roger's first ever documentary. [...] This original documentary told the story of a then four year old Brett who had been born without arms due to Thalidomide. It proved to be a landmark in broadcasting on the subject of disability, was shown around the world and went on to win numerous awards. [...] He is father now to three children and we see in this incredibly inspiring film, how Brett is now swapping roles with his own father who, in ailing health, needs his support."
Common Ground: Dance and Disability by Steven Christiansen et al.
Publication Date: 1990
"This video shows individuals with a variety of disabilities exploring physical movement and dance. It features people in and out of wheelchairs practicing balances and lifts and improvising movement sequences."
How Does It Feel by Lawrence Jackman, director
Publication Date: 2011
"This short documentary is a meditation on performance, self-expression, (dis)ability, and the power of art. At age 58, Kazumi has decided to use his singing voice to channel his cerebral palsy (CP). As Kazumi draws from his exuberant, poignant and painful experiences, performer and teacher Fides Krucker guides him to embrace his inner artist."
James Castle: Portrait of an Artist by Jeffrey Wolf, director
Publication Date: 2008
"Born deaf in 1899, James Castle produced an astonishing body of drawings, collages, and constructions which eventually gained worldwide recognition. Jeffrey Wolf's acclaimed film reveals Castle's life and creative process as told by family members, art historians, curators, artists, collectors, and members of the deaf community."
My Wonderful Life as a Vegetable by Lars Feldballe, director
Publication Date: 2012
"My Wonderful Life as a Vegetable shares the story Birger Bergmann and his zeal for life. After developing the incurable degenerative neurological disease amyotrophic lateral schlerosis"”also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease"”Birger became fiercely determined to educate other ALS patients and their families. He's published several books and describes himself as a happier man after his diagnosis, despite his head-to-toe paralysis and obstacles to communicating. My Wonderful Life as a Vegetable raises valuable ethical dilemmas including the question of whether governments have the right to deny life-saving medical equipment when costs become exorbitant..."

Disability Studies

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Disability Studies: Introduction

Disability Studies: Background Reading

Disability Studies: Scholarly Books

Disability Studies: Streaming Videos

Disability Studies: Organizations