in thin – king about
de- fining
de- coarsening
Disability dishabille
Studies, and exploring its nature nurture,
I want to ensure the place of Mad maaaaaaaaaad
scholarship within Disability Studies.
as a Mad-identified scholar
who also identifies as Disabled,
I do not want to claim that Mad Studies is a subset of Disability Studies
becuz Mad Studies ⊄ Disability Studies
or that Mad Studies is an element of Disability Studies
Mad Studies ∉ Disability Studies.
(dan) rather, I want to claim that Mad Studies intersects with Disability Studies
Mad Studies ∩ Disability Studies
and that the two are congruent
Mad Studies ≅ Disability Studies.
Mad scholarship has drawn (and quartered) on much (mensch) uvda
YUGELY
wide
wonderful
wired weird whirled world of Disability Studies
(Menzie, LeFrançois, & Reaume, 2013)
including Disability Studies that is Critical
and on Crip Studies and theory.
in fact(otum) (if there are facts)
I'd say that Mad Studies owes its existence to Disability Studies.
but:
it seams to me that Mad scholarship izza
train on its own track
one that crosses, intersects, and even merges at times
and for substantial distances
wid Disability Studies
they share much in common, though they are not the same.
a score of years and tears ago
I began to identify myself as disabled
partly as a result of my discovery of Disability Studies.
at that time
if you'da asktervated me
I woulda identified myself as having a psychiatric disability
though I was and am opposed to everything that psychiatry stands for and does.
discovering Disability Studies felt like coming home:
here, finally, were my people
folx talkin' 'bout and exploratin'
stuff that was central
to my identity and scholarship
in ways that made extraordinary sense
and non-sense
to me.
then I came across
the newly-crafted field and meadow and pasture of Mad Studies
and the work of those who identify as Mad.
omigoodness.
such righteous coolness.
Disability Studies offered up much to Mad Studies.
and wud I think izdat Mad Studies offers much back.
it offers a Mad Turn:
an "in/discipline"
(Ingram, 2008)
a Mad poesis
a Mad Turn
that offers a way outta
the dead-end of academic logical positivizm
anti-founded instead
on/in/through/out/about
a Turn towards the irrational
unreasonable
surreal
inappropriate
unmanageable
incredible
illegitimate.
an anti-methodology that is crazy as a motherfucker.
a weigh to explore the bawdy lustiness of untoward bodyminds
threw the outrageousness of impossible new imaginariums.
opposed to the typical neoliberal corporatizm
of increasingly commodified academe,
it is a new kind of outsider onto-epistemology
wutzit look like?
if we knew, and could define it
it wouldn't be whatever it is that it wants to be.
References
- Ingram, R. (2008). Mapping "Mad studies": The birth of an in/discipline. Disability Studies Student Conference, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
- Menzie, R., LeFrançois, B., & Reaume, G. (2013). Introducing mad studies. In B. LeFrançois, R. Menzies, & G. Reaume (Eds.) Mad matters: A critical reader in Canadian mad studies (pp. 1-22). Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.
Copyright (c) 2017 Phil Smith

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