Description
Book SynopsisBending Over Backwards reexamines issues concerning the relationship between disability and normality in the light of postmodern theory and political activism. Davis takes up homosexuality, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the legal system, the history of science and medicine, eugenics, and genetics.
Trade ReviewDavis's work offers creative and challenging examples that may be useful to our discipline and particularly to Disability historians. Bending Over Backwards remains an important and useful work for historians as a template for examining the myriad ways disability and Deafness infiltrate vital aspects of our identity, including laws, cultural icons, literature, and citizenship. * H-Net Reviews *
Taken all together, the chapters offer an important, theoretically rich introduction to disability issues. * Novel *
[Its] uniqueness of thought is this collection’s strength as it makes for an interesting and proactive read. * American Journal of Occupational Therapy *
Lennard Davis is history in the making; for he is one of the foremost proponents of "disability studies," the newest theoretical kid on the block, noteworthy in part because it brings together scholars from the humanities and the medical sciences. -- Stanley Fish * Chicago Tribune *
Bending Over Backwards is a welcome dismemberment of all that was unknowingly artificial from the start. * The Minnesota Review *
Table of Contents1. THE END OF IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE BEGINNING OF DISMODERNISM 2. CRIPS STRIKE BACK 3. DR. JOHNSON, AMELIA, AND THE DISCOURSE OF DISABILITY 4. CRIMINAL STATEMENTS 5. WHO PUT THE THE IN THE NOVEL? 6. THE RULE OF NORMALCY 7. BENDING OVER BACKWARDS 8. GO TO THE MARGINS OF THE CLASS 9. A VOYAGE OUT (OR IS IT BACK?)
