Since 2014, the field of Deaf studies has embraced the concept of “Deaf Gain” (Bauman & Murray), a theoretical framework positioning Deaf people as offering unique skills, perceptions, and behaviors that benefit all of society. At the same time, the broader field of disability studies has also produced many studies showing the benefits that disability and disabled people offer. This issue offers a collection of pieces that continue along those lines, with articles that explore cripistemologies related to blindness and mathematics, ADHD, addiction, and sports.
Michele Mele and Győző Molnár, in their article “The Ocularcentric Paradigm in Mathematics: Historical Roots and Contemporary Consequences,” offer the most direct example of a cripistemologic benefit by providing an example of what could be called “blind gain,” though the authors do not use that term themselves. They provide historical examples of blind mathematicians’ contributions to mathematical theory–contributions that were not possible or immediately evident using two-dimensional, written formulations. In addition to highlighting the generative influences of blindness on cognitive approaches, the article also explores some of the history of Western ocularcentrism and the limitations it has created. The article challenges the deficit model of disability by documenting the ways blindness has been an epistemologically productive force in the history of mathematics.
Kaleb Germinaro’s article, “On Becoming Disabled: Pedagogy of Disability through Crip Storywork,” then looks at epistemological issues of through an intersectional lens. Germinaro introduces a “crip storywork” framework that “challenges white, ableist knowledge construction and storytelling traditions by honoring narrative, embodied, and ancestral ways of knowing. It resists extractive approaches to methodology and instead uplifts the wisdom of disabled stories—holding space for disabled realities, griefs, joys and liberatory visions.” Through crip storywork, Germinaro grapples with the intersections of Black masculinity and disability, demonstrating how this framework can be applied to other communities and identities.
In the third article, “Tangent 1: How Can We Know? An Intersectional Feminist ADHD Epistemology of Ranting, Spirality and Curvimultipoint(s),” Dyi Huijg brings a critical feminist ADHD studies lens to her exploration of ADHD knowledge production through the ADHD practice of ranting. Huijg argues that the academy’s knowledge production standards too often gatekeep ADHD methods of knowledge production. Through her performance of an “epistemology of ranting” that models ADHD thinking, communication, and writing, she illustrates these as vital forms of ADHD knowledge production.
The next article, “Beating Addiction: A Disability Studies Perspective on William Burroughs,” examines drug use and the contributions of Beat literature through a disability lens. In her analysis of William Burroughs’s work, Alexis Young argues that Burroughs’s stylistic elements references drugs in order to invoke what we today would view as a “modern disabled ethic.” Further, even as Young recognizes the limitations of genre in representing the “incurable and multifaceted realities of addiction,” Young also believes Beat literature to contain “generative elements that can help us conceptualize a more inclusive future of drug and addiction storytelling.”
Finally, Marty Heath utilizes the example of Oscar Pistorius and his running blades to reexamine cyborgization, prosthetics, and the disabled body within the realm of sports. “Assistive Technologies as Perceived Advantage: How Fairness Discourses Perpetuate the Exclusion of People with Disabilities from Elite Sport” contends that the concept of fairness within sports reifies essentialist notions of race, gender and disability. Heath posits the notion of a “level playing field” itself presents a false binary between disabled and nondisabled bodies. For Heath, this destabilization of disabled and nondisabled as discrete categories establishes that fairness discourse more often than not polices social categories rather than ensuring equity.
On a personal note, I (Donald Grushkin) wish to announce that with the expiration of my term as Co Editor-in-Chief, this will be the last issue I will have had a hand in producing. I initially applied for the position partly as a means of accomplishing a personal “academic bucket list” of becoming an editor of a journal, but in doing so I also found the experience to be stimulating, rewarding, at times fun, and at times, frustrating. I had initially expected to be working alone but instead found I would be co-editing with Jeff. This proved to be a wise decision on SDS’s part, as we brought complementary skills and knowledge to the job of resuscitating this journal. I am pleased to say that our efforts have yielded positive results and the publishing operations of the journal are now on a stable footing and the only significant challenge that remains is our funding.
This brings me to our quarterly reminder: please consider contributing to the journal in whatever ways you can: by paying membership dues and donating to SDS, accepting our requests to review articles, and of course, by submitting your research and other work. No journal, including ours, can do its work without people like you offering their expertise and insights. My biggest frustration as an editor has been finding peer reviewers who will accept requests to review articles. While we have a pool of reviewers, we find that a good number of these requests get declined or “ghosted” and we need more people to step up to do this work. All of this to say, please feel free to add your name to the reviewer pool. If you have not done so already, please consider logging into DSQ (the “account” or “login” button is on the upper right side of our website) and check the box to indicate your willingness to review articles. Please make sure to add keywords that indicate the fields and topics you are qualified to review, since this is how we often search for reviewers.
Moving forward, Jeff Brune and Rachael Lynch will continue their work for DSQ and there will be a new member of the editorial team coming on board this fall. They will have more announcements in later issues and I leave feeling confident that the journal remains in good hands.
