Pac Rim 2009 Info
Noted Speakers: Robert McRuer
Polly Arango | Fernando Cruz | Frank De Lima | Frank DeRuyter | Katharina Heyer | Cinda and Linea Johnson | David Johnson | Robert Mcruer | Leolinda Parlin | Tanya and Michelle Ponich | Joseph Ray | Suzanne Robinson | Loretta Ross | Dr. Neil Scott | Howard C. Shane | Charlotte Smith | Bethany Stevens | Damon Terzaghi | Amy Wilson
Monday May 4th, 2009: 9:00 am - 10:00 am in Room 305B, on topic of Disability Studies
“Disability Nationalism in Crip Times”
Disability Nationalism in Crip Times" considers how disabled bodies are positioned in relation to the contemporary nation-state, with some experiencing—in Jasbir K. Puar's terms—"incorporation" into the nation while others face "quarantine." Through a consideration of representations of Guantanamo Bay prison, this talk analyzes the politics of disability in a site constituted as simultaneously internal and external to the state. Examining corporealities that are not legible within the identity-based and nationalist terms most familiar to the Disability Rights Movement, the paper excavates the ways in which the current geopolitical order targets certain disabled bodies for life and others for death.
Biography: Robert McRuer
Robert McRuer is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at The George Washington University, where he teaches queer theory, disability studies, and cultural studies. He is the author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU, 2006) and The Queer Renaissance: Contemporary American Literature and the Reinvention of Lesbian and Gay Identities (NYU, 1997). He is co-editor, with Abby L. Wilkerson, of Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies, which appeared as a special issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (2003). His articles have appeared in PMLA, Radical History Review, Genders, the Journal of Medical Humanities, and numerous other locations.
