Recommended Readings: Informing the Uninformed

Books

Susan Sontag

Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors

“As long as a particular disease is treated as an evil, invincible predator, not just a disease, most people with cancer will indeed be demoralized by learning what disease they have. The solution is hardly to stop telling cancer patients the truth, but to rectify the conception of the disease, to de-mythicize it.”

The book combines two essays written by Sontag after being diagnosed with cancer and after the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Through metaphorical theories, both essays challenge public perceptions of disease and seek to educate the reader about the fantasies of illness.

Tobin Anthony Siebers

Disability Aesthetics

“To argue that disability has a rich but hidden role in the history of art is not to say that disability has been excluded. It is rather the case that disability is rarely recognized as such, even though it often serves as the very factor that establishes works as superior examples of aesthetic beauty.”

A complex, comprehensive dialogue of disability theory within the history of visual culture. Through the analysis of art, including the work of Paul McCarthy and Judith Scott, Siebers offers a new perspective and reexamines art through the lens of disability aesthetics.

Ann Millett-Gallant

The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art

In a 2012 book review, Tobin Siebers reflects on Millet-Gallant’s viewpoints: Millet-Gallant's reading is crucial because it disrupts the two clichés dominating the relation between art history and disability studies. Works by nondisabled artists interested in disability cannot be criticized merely for enacting oppression. Similarly, works by disabled artists cannot be reduced to the representation of suffering and forced into a marginal position.

The first book to ever intertwine art history and disability aesthetics. Analysis of examples goes beyond the traditional mediums in art and includes spectacle “freak shows.”

Emily Ladau

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally

In a 2022 book review, Kayleen Holt discusses Ladau’s school of thought:

“As she mentions, every person with a disability is different—in fact, even two people with the same diagnosis will experience different effects of that diagnosis. For this reason, she does not attempt to speak for all disabled people. Rather, she shares her experience and perspective while also referencing what others in the disabled community have taught. It presents a balanced and informative overview of disabilities and disability allyship.”

The book, centered around sociopolitical culture, offers a chance for the reader to assess and how they view disability. Additionally, Ladau promotes inclusivity and accessibility through positive connotations and the sharing of ideas through her own personal experiences and interviews with others within the disability community.

Alice Wong

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

“This may feel true for every era, but I believe I am living in a time where disabled people are more visible than ever before. And yet while representation is exciting and important, it is not enough. I want and expect more. We all should expect more. We all deserve more. There must be depth, range, nuance to disability representation in media. This is the current challenge and opportunity for the publishing industry and popular culture at large.”

A must read for everyone. The personal stories are thought-provoking and powerful, providing a platform to share ideas for a community that has long been overlooked and silenced.

Gretchen E. Henderson

Ugliness: A Cultural History

“Working around words that have been used relationally with 'ugly' (including 'monstrous',

"loathly', 'grotesque', 'deformed', 'freak' and 'cyborg'), I hope to illuminate the distance between classifier and classified, consumer and consumed, and other combined categories.”

A thought-provoking book that traces back the history of ugliness.

Articles

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Disability and Representation

Linda Ware

When Art Informs: Inviting Ways to See the Unexpected

Tobin Siebers

Disability, Pain, and the Politics of Minority Identity