Special Issue CFP for TWC: Disability
Robert McRuer writes in Crip Theory that at some point in every person’s life, if they live long enough, they will be disabled. Yet, while disablement is an extremely common experience and ableism a hegemonic form of marginalization, disability is largely understudied across fields (Minich 2016, Ellcessor 2018). Fan studies has neglected to consistently explore disability or acknowledge the presence of ableism, resulting in a dearth of peer-reviewed publications on this intersection and a silencing of crip critique from disabled fans and scholars.
Disability studies formed in critique of the medical model of disability, which views disability as a problem to be solved. Most of the field’s critical work historically centers the social model, which frames disability not as a medical condition but as a social process discursively situated in histories of power (Siebers 2008). Contemporary disability scholarship more frequently works from Kafer’s (2013) political-relational model of disability, which clarifies that disability and impairment are both socially constructed, while also making explicit room for material realities of disablement, such as chronic pain and fatigue, and the inextricable mental-physical experiences of the bodymind, such as aging and neurodivergence (Price 2015). Approaching disability across the humanities has produced diverse modes of analyzing disability as identity (Shakespeare 1997), community (Clare 2017), and mediated representation (Garland-Thomson 1997), leading to crip theories exploring disability intersectionality to critique the ideology of ability (Samuels 2003, McRuer 2006). Disability studies especially draws from queer theory, building on the concept of compulsory heterosexuality—the hegemonic framework which renders heterosexuality the only thinkable option—to propose compulsory able-bodiedness, the requirement that disabled bodies perform as able and desire ability, highlighting homophobia and ableism as intersecting oppressions (McRuer 2006, Clare 2017). Further intersectional crip critique comes from Puar (2017) and other postcolonial and antiracist scholars (Schalk 2018), who describe how the violence of ableism is inequitably applied across multiply marginalized populations, illustrating how disability is not only missing from many intersectional theories of identity, but intersectionality has been lacking in disability theories.
We, as the editors of this issue, understand disability within the framework of the intersectional political-relational model, and believe that fan studies is well situated to contribute to discussions of disability. For example, Sterne and Mills (2017) propose “dismediation” as one mode of aligning media and disability studies’ often divergent goals through recognizing disability and media as co-constitutive—media concepts are awash with metaphors of disablement, and disabilities are so often figured against the cultural narratives and technological specifications of media. Further, fan studies’ continued claims to fandom’s transformative capacity and attention to “bodies in space” (Coppa 2014) desperately require the incorporation of disability critique. Fan studies has not entirely neglected disability as a marginalized identity, as fan scholars have begun to explore the accessibility of online fandom (Ellcessor 2018), examine the disability implications of fanfic as care labor (Leetal 2019), and advocate for thinking with disability to become a “default setting” in our field (Howell 2019). However, the disciplinary lacuna between these two fields has made it difficult for these conversations to develop a strong institutional foothold. By centering disability in fan studies’ discussions, this special issue can foster an encouraging environment for emerging dialogue between the fields to develop, as well as a supportive space for marginalized scholars and fans who do not see themselves represented in media, fan communities, or scholarship spaces.
We encourage submissions from scholars writing about disability from a fan studies perspective, as well as disability scholars writing about topics intersecting with fans/audiences/reception practices. We especially welcome intersectional perspectives that engage with disability as it operates in relation to intersecting identities such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality (Bell 2016). Pieces for this special issue may explore questions of disability and fandom from an embodied, textual, or discursive perspective, for instance: What are the experiences of various disabled fans in fandom? What discourses of disability are circulated, perpetuated, and/or critiqued in fan spaces? How do fans negotiate portrayals of disability in their subjects of fandom, from movies to podcasts to celebrities? How has disability accessibility figured in various fandoms and fan spaces? How do rhetorics of disability, illness, and health affect fan communities and discussions? How does disability identity intersect with fan identity, and/or other marginalized identities?
Submissions may involve but are not limited to:
Fans/fandom and…
Dis/ability
Neurodivergence
Chronic pain and/or illness
Mental illness and/or Mad perspectives
Bodily norms/Normativity
Discourses/narratives/representations of any of the above topics
Accessibility, in digital spaces (Tumblr, Dreamwidth, etc.) and/or physical spaces (conventions, industry, etc.)
Fan mediums with particular relationships to disability, such as cosplay or podfic
Submission Guidelines
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/ ) is an international peer-reviewed online Diamond Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works, copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and promotes dialogue between academic and fan communities. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms, such as multimedia, that embrace the technical possibilities of the internet and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.
Submit final papers directly to Transformative Works and Cultures by January 1, 2025.
Articles: Peer review. Maximum 8,000 words.
Symposium: Editorial review. Maximum 4,000 words.
Please visit TWC's website ( https://journal.transformativeworks.org/ ) for complete submission guidelines, or email the TWC Editor ( [email protected] ).
Contact—Contact guest editors Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse with any questions before or after the due date [email protected] .
Works Cited
Bell, Chris. 2016. “Is Disability Studies Actually White Disability Studies?” In The Disability Studies Reader edited by Lennard Davis, 406-425. New York: Routledge.
Clare, Eli. 2017. Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. Durham: Duke University Press.
Coppa, Francesca. 2014. “Writing Bodies in Space: Media Fan Fiction as Theatrical Performance.” In The Fan Fiction Studies Reader, edited by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 218-238. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Davis, Lennard. 1995. “Introduction: Disability, the Missing Term in the Race, Class, Gender Triad.” In Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body, 23-49. London and New York: Verso.
Ellcessor, Elizabeth. 2018. “Accessing Fan Cultures: Disability, Digital Media, and Dreamwidth” in The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott, 202-211. New York: Routledge.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Howell, Katherine Anderson. 2019. “Human Activity: Fan Studies, Fandom, Disability and the Classroom.” Journal of Fandom Studies 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs.7.1.3_2
Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Leetal, Dean Barnes. 2019. “Those Crazy Fangirls on the Internet: Activism of Care, Disability and Fan Fiction.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 8 (2). https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/491
McRuer, Robert. 2006. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York and London: New York University Press.
Minich, Julie Avril. 2016. “Enabling Whom? Critical Disability Studies Now.” Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, 5.1. https://csalateral.org/issue/5-1/forum-alt-humanities-critical-disability-studies-now-minich/ .
Price, Margaret. 2015. "The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain." Hypatia 30, no. 1: 268-284.
Puar, Jasbir. 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Samuels, Ellen. 2003. “My Body, My Closet: Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming Out Discourse.” GLQ 9, no.1-2: 233-255.
Schalk, Sami. 2018. Bodyminds Reimagined. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Shakespeare, Tom. 1996. “Disability, Identity and Difference.” Exploring the Divide, edited by Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer: 94-113.
Siebers, Tobin. 2008. Disability Theory. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Sterne, Jonathan and Mara Mills. 2017. “Dismediation: Three Proposals, Six Tactics.” In Disability Media Studies, edited by Elizabeth Ellcessor and Bill Kirkpatrick. New York: NYU Press.
COMMENTS
Critique: All literature types: Critical review: Grant and Booth 2009: Dieckmann, Malle, and Bodner 2009: Dieckmann, Malle, and Bodner (2009) provide an example of a critical review examining the reporting and practices of meta-analyses in psychology and related fields. The review compares the amassed group of literature in the subfields to a ...
literature review can play a major role (Parahoo, 2006). Logical consistency A research study needs to follow the steps in the process in a logical manner.There should also be a clear link between the steps beginning with the purpose of the study and following through the literature review, the theoretical framework, the
Literature reviews are foundational to any study. They describe what is known about given topic and lead us to identify a knowledge gap to study. All reviews require authors to be able accurately summarize, synthesize, interpret and even critique the research literature. 1, 2 In fact, for this editorial we have had to review the literature on ...
The review of literature should be comprehensive but concise, and should address the key health concerns and concepts of interest for the study. ... Developing a framework for critiquing health research: An early evaluation. Nurse Education Today, 31 (8) (2011), pp. e1-e7. View PDF View article View in Scopus Google Scholar. Cherry, 2018.
The literature review can serve various functions in the contexts of education and research. It aids in identifying knowledge gaps, informing research methodology, and developing a theoretical framework during the planning stages of a research study or project, as well as reporting of review findings in the context of the existing literature.
This guide focuses on the searching for literature step of the literature review process. Conducting your search, storing and organising the literature and evaluating what you find. ... Critiquing the literature involves looking at the strength and weaknesses of the paper and evaluating the statements made by the author/s.
Literature review The function of a literature review in research smdies is to provide an objective account of what has been written on a given subject.This in turn should reflect prominent emerging themes and inform the conceptual framework of the study. Qualitative research follows the naturalistic paradigm
Frameworks for critiquing research articles. Download electronic versions of tables 7.2 and 7.3 in the text to print off and help you when critiquing quantitative and qualitative research articles. Find out more, read a sample chapter, or order an inspection copy if you are a lecturer, from the.
Instead, a literature review for an empirical article or for a thesis is usually organized by concept. However, a literature review on a topic that one is trying to publish in its own right could be organized by the issues uncovered in that review e.g. definitional issues, measurement issues and so on. 3.3. Assessing the literature that was ...
Writing a literature review requires a range of skills to gather, sort, evaluate and summarise peer-reviewed published data into a relevant and informative unbiased narrative. Digital access to research papers, academic texts, review articles, reference databases and public data sets are all sources of information that are available to enrich ...
The Critical Literature Review Q: What is a literature review? Stated most simply, it is an overview of published and unpublished materials which help answer two fundamental questions: 1. What are the current theoretical or policy issues and debates related to your topic? 2. What is the current state of knowledge about these issues and problems?
Abstract. As with a quantitative study, critical analysis of a qualitative study involves an in-depth review of how each step of the research was undertaken. Qualitative and quantitative studies are, however, fundamentally different approaches to research and therefore need to be considered differently with regard to critiquing.
1. Use these guidelines to critique your selected research article to be included in your research proposal. You do not need to address all the questions indicated in this guideline, and only include the questions that apply. 2. Prepare your report as a paper with appropriate headings and use APA format 5th edition.
The literature review should include the researcher's evaluation and critique of the selected studies. A researcher may have a large collection of studies, but not all of the studies will follow standards important in the reporting of empirical work in the social sciences. ... or relevant literature section. The framework shapes the types of ...
Review Literature as Topic*. This article examines how to synthesise and critique research literature. To place the process of synthesising the research literature into context, the article explores the critiquing process by breaking it down into seven sequential steps. The article explains how and why these steps need to be ke ….
THE LITERATURE REVIEW The literature review should give an overview of the available literature which frames or surrounds the problem being researched. It should look at the similarities and differences between the literature, as well as the strengths and limitations. It should illustrate how the current study fits into the existing framework of
Framework for How to Read and Critique a Research Study 1. Critiquing the research article a. Title - Does it accurately describe the article? b. Abstract - Is it representative of the article? ... Literature review - Is the literature review relevant to the study, comprehensive, and include recent research? Does the literature review
THE LITERATURE REVIEW. The literature review should give an overview of the available literature which frames or surrounds the problem being researched. It should look at the similarities and differences between the literature, as well as the strengths and limitations. It should illustrate how the current study fits into the existing framework of
Is the literature review comprehensive and up-to-date? ... The Research Critique Framework developed by Caldwell et al. (2005) resulted in all but one study achieving a moderate score. Martino et ...
Critiquing Literature / Critical Review; Search this Guide Search. Literature Reviews, Critiquing, & Synthesizing Literature. Literature Review; Types of Review Articles; ... Developing a framework for critiquing health research: An early evaluation. by Caldwell, Kay; Henshaw, Lynne; Taylor, Georgina
The organizing framework of the literature review is based on a combination of Lasswell's 5W construct and the TCM (Theory-Context-Methods) framework (Paul et al. 2017).
This article explores how to search and critique the research literature. This involves explaining how to generate a robust literature review question, search databases in the most effective manner and produce a robust analysis of the literature. The article also outlines how a novice literature reviewer might develop the skills required to ...
Introduction. Developing and maintaining proficiency in critiquing research have become a core skill in today's evidence-based nursing. In addition, understanding, synthesising and critiquing research are fundamental parts of all nursing curricula at both pre- and post-registration levels (NMC, 2011).This paper presents a guide, which has potential utility in both practice and when undertaking ...
Disability studies formed in critique of the medical model of disability, which views disability as a problem to be solved. Most of the field's critical work historically centers the social model, which frames disability not as a medical condition but as a social process discursively situated in histories of power (Siebers 2008).