Shooting Up: Ep. 4

*The 4th one is free*

Happy Disability Pride Month! To celebrate, we’re making this episode free. Welcome to the first in our series on Disability Studies 101.

We’ll talk about different models of disability next week, but if you’ve gotten this far and you’re wondering “uhhhh, I don’t identify as disabled — is this still for me?” the short answer is “YES.”

Today’s topic: Narrative Prosthesis — or what do Captain Ahab, Tiny Tim, and Oedipus have in common? (It’s not just a limp…)

Curious about the Mitchell & Snyder chapter? Here you go. It’s a nice one-sitting read (12 pages), and you’ll get more nuance to the broad strokes I outlined in the video.

Some post-video notes (because I’m a compulsive self-editor):

• Yes, disabled people have taken back the word “crip” (as in “cripple”) much as the LQBTQ+ community has reclaimed “queer.”

• I actually do think I’m a little better than Richard III because I have never put out a hit on any grade-school boys. Richard III is better than me because he can seduce his new wife over her dead husband’s body. Richard III and I are tied because we both want a horse.

• The idea of “cure” evokes a complex range of responses within the disabled community — in no small part because the community’s umbrella is so broad. While, on the whole, DS as a discipline emphasizes social/cultural inclusivity for disabled people over pursuit of a cure, for individuals, it can be a bit like asking individual X-Men how they feel about being X-Men: it depends on who you talk to, how integrated they feel with their bodily difference, and how difficult society makes it to live with that difference in their environment. (“I can shoot little fireworks from my hands” is not a structurally equivalent challenge to “I kill everything I touch.” Sorry, Jubilee.)

So, what kinds of examples of narrative prosthesis are you thinking about right now? You’ll never unsee it. Hit us up in the comments!

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