Crip Theory

“This well-annotated text invites the uninitiated reader to become involved, to reimagine previously held perceptions of what may be considered ‘otherness,’ to welcome disabilities, to access collectively other worlds and future possibilities.” -Journal of American Studies”The members of the Committee were especially impressed by McRuer’s original intervention in the area of queer studies, one that not only sheds light on the important new area of disability studies, but brings it into conversation with a variety of disciplinary perspectives, from composition studies to performance art. McRuer’s book combines the public and the private work of queer studies in surprisingly new ways.” –Ed Madden, Gay and Lesbian Caucus for the MLA”A wonderful combination of humor, theory, intellectual, and personal insights… A valuable and well-written study.” –Disability Studies Quarterly”A compelling case that queer and disabled identities, politics, and cultural logics are inexorably intertwined, and that queer and disability theory need one another… Makes clear that no cultural analysis is complete without attention to the politics of bodily ability and alternative corporealities.” –Elizabeth Freeman, author of The Wedding Complex”Important and significant for its attempt to find the common ground between disability studies and queer studies. This deftly written and very readable book will appeal to a wide range of readers who are increasingly fascinated by the biocultural interplay between the body, sexuality, gender, and social identity.” –Lennard Davis, author of Bending Over Backwards

Robert McRuer is Professor of English at George Washington University. He is the author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability and The Queer Renaissance: Contemporary American Literature and the Reinvention of Lesbian and Gay Identities. With Anna Mollow, he co-edited the anthology Sex and Disability.

Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. In 2012, he served as the President of the Modern Language Association. He is the author of several books, including Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies, The Left at War, What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and “ Bias” in Higher Education, and Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child.