Call for Nominations to the Editorial Board of Disability Studies Quarterly

The Editors of Disability Studies Quarterly, the oldest magazine of disability studies scholarship and the flagship publication of the Society for Disability Studies, are seeking nominations to the Editorial Board. The general purpose of the Editorial Board is to provide knowledgeable support for the publication of scholarship of the highest quality. Members of the Editorial Board are highly-regarded scholars and researchers from a variety of academic disciplines and areas of expertise. Editorial Board members typically serve for a period of three years with the possibility of renewal for additional terms.

Responsibilities of Board members include:

• conducting three to five reviews of submissions to DSQ annually;
• recommending additional reviewers for submissions;
• serving in an advisory capacity on matters related to special issues or requests and on the development of a clear policy between SDS and DSQ;
• attending, if at all possible, the annual SDS meeting and a special meeting of the DSQ editorial board at that conference;
• promoting the journal in their own institutions, affiliations and fields and directing potential authors and scholars to DSQ.

We invite nominations or self-nominations for service on the *Disability Studies Quarterly *Editorial board. Please send a brief letter of your interest that highlights your expertise in the field of Disability Studies and a current resume/cv. Electronic submissions are preferred. SEND TO: dsqjournal@gmail.com

REVIEW OF NOMINATIONS WILL BEGIN MAY 15, 2011

TYLER RIGG AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED

The winner of the 2010 (volume 30) TYLER RIGG AWARD (for Disability Studies Scholarship in Literature and Literary Analysis) is Kristina Chew for

The four judges this year were:
Edward Wheatley; Michael Davidson; Martha Stoddard-Holmes; Tobin Siebers

The award winner will receive a $500 award & a plaque.

Here are a sampling of the judge's comments about Chew's essay:

• Chew's essay on Lois Ann Yamanka deals with a difficult issue (not only autism but selective abortion and race) and situates it within Asian American writing generally. I admire Yamanaka's writing, but have never read anything about her recent work. Chew knows the controversy surrounding Blu's Hanging within the Asian American Studies Association and acknowledges that her new book may be equally troubling on disability issues. But Chew treats the issue head-on and shows how confronting autism in the novel situates it against the backdrop of "silence" in Asian American writing. In brief, I think she covers a great deal of ground in linking cognitive disability to issues of race and ethnicity without spending too much time rehearsing well known theoretical issues within disability studies.. . . I feel that the Chew essay offers a satisfying and "complete" treatment of both Yamanaka's novel and disability. And the Chew essay contributes to the scant literature on disability and race/ethnicity.
• Thoughtfully deploying the theoretical concept of narrative prosthesis, Kristina Chew explores issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender to elucidate surprising but convincing geographies of disability and difference in this work of Asian-American literature. This is a deeply impressive piece of scholarship that valorizes autism as experienced by a character, his mother, and his larger community.
• Kristina Chew's contribution explains that there are no two autism narratives that are alike. Chew brings together major ideas in Asian-American Studies and Disability Studies in a clear and savvy way.
• Kristina Chew's essay on the "disabled speech of Asian Americans" was measurably ambitious. An analysis of the mutually inflecting elements of representation that shape cultural identities and lived experiences is always transformative and exciting, and I think this essay is a timely herald of an innovative and important focus in at least two disciplines, as marked by the recent cfp for a special issue of Amerasian Journal on "The State of Illness and Disability in Asian America." I say "at least two" because the essay's engagement with a controversial fiction resonates not only in disability studies and Asian-American studies but also sparks new trains of thought in critical race theory, gender studies, and of course, a/b studies.