CfP: Disability at the Intersection of History, Culture, Religion, Gender, and Health

Deadline: May 6, 2022

Disability is a living human experience. It is not merely a medical or biological phenomenon, and it is not only the subject of sciences. Perspectives on disability have evolved historically, theologically, and medically. Academics and disability activists have increasingly come to view disability as more than an individual medical diagnosis, often highlighting it as an issue of social justice and equity. As such, there is a need for further collaboration between the sciences and the humanities to deepen our understanding of disability in all of its complexities. Using interdisciplinary approaches to examine disability as fluid and dynamic condition can help us understand it as an identity and as social construct.

The aim of this Special Issue is to encourage interdisciplinary research that offers critical analysis of how disabilities have been viewed in historical terms, the complexities of the religious meanings of disability, disabilities as social/cultural constructs, and the norms that produce and reproduce perceptions of normalcy or normative bodies. We particularly welcome papers dealing with normalcy narratives, discourse, and issues of stigmas evolving around disabilities in marginalized communities with an emphasis on the intersection of disability (as an identity and minority) with gender, culture, and religion

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Disability and identity
  • Social and cultural construction of disabilities
  • Religious and cultural perspectives on disability
  • Bodies and construction of normalcy
  • Gendered disabilities and feminist approaches to disability
  • Language terminology and conceptualization of impairment and disability in literary, cultural, and artistic production
  • Disabilities as social and legal rights issue
  • Community activism, policy making, and service
  • Lived experiences, life-writing and narratives of people with disability

Issue Editors:
Dr. Enaya Hammad Othman, Marquette University.
Dr. Shannon R. Wooden, Missouri State University.
Dr. Karalee Surface, Marquette University.