Disability Studies Quarterly
Spring 2005, Volume 25, No. 2
<www.dsq-sds.org>
Copyright 2005 by the Society
for Disability Studies


Editor's Preface

After several months of notices that password protection on the DSQ site was about to take place, it finally has. The response has been what we had hoped – fairly neutral. We didn't expect lots of thank yous for adding a step to access the site, but we also haven't heard many negative comments about the new restrictions. (Only members of the Society for Disability Studies and paid subscribers can fully access the password-protected DSQ site. Some parts of the site remain available to all, e.g. the Tables of Contents of every issue.)

We are happy to report that several libraries are renewing their subscriptions to DSQ now that it is no longer free on the Web. We encourage all of you to ask your local university and/or public library to subscribe to DSQ. In this way, we hope to spark an interest in disability studies for new audiences – undergraduates and graduate students who stumble upon the field during their studies, community members who take an interest in disability issues, disability organizations who need to know about research in the field, etc. Bringing new people into the field is what will keep it vibrant and energized.

We can also report that we seem to be experiencing a "bounty of riches" here at DSQ, in terms of interest in the journal's upcoming theme sections. This issue features a theme section on technology, guest edited by Gerard Goggin of the University of Queensland in Australia and Christopher Newell of University of Tasmania School of Medicine in Australia. After the peer-review process had done its selection on the basis of merit, such a large number of quality articles remained that we decided to split the theme section into two parts, with one in the spring issue and one in the summer. Then the same phenomenon occurred for the summer theme section on freakery, guest edited by Michael Chemers of Carnegie Mellon University, so that theme section also will be divided into two parts and spread over the summer and fall issues.

Although our quarterly format makes it difficult to address timely issues, DSQ does try to bring in current disability-related discussions occurring in society. Therefore, we will have a special forum in the summer issue on the controversy over the Oscar-winning film "Million Dollar Baby." Those who would like to contribute an essay should visit http://www.dsq-sds.org/future_theme_issues.html. With all the discussion about the movie in the activist community, we felt the academic community should also address the impact of the movie in a substantive way. As a preface to the forum, its guest editors, Jay Dolmage and William DeGenaro of Miami University of Ohio, have a commentary in this DSQ issue.

As usual, DSQ has some thought-provoking and interesting general research papers in this issue, that range in topic from American Indian children with disabilities to Australian special educators' opinions about inclusive education to disability and masculinity. We continue to have a large number of insightful reviews of books, videos, film, and TV on topics related to disability studies.

Finally, we encourage you to help us do "public relations." Please tell your colleagues, students, friends, and local activists about DSQ. We have publicity materials that you could distribute at conferences or local meetings; just ask and we'll send them. All the great work that is published in DSQ deserves the widest possible readership, not to mention the stimulation of future submissions from a wider audience that will contend with, extend, or complement what has been published thus far.

Beth Haller
Co-Editor

&

Corinne Kirchner
Co-Editor