Lexington Books Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies

Addressing Ableism is a set of philosophical meditations outlining the scale and scope of ableism. By explicating concepts like experience, diagnosis, precariousness, and prosthesis, Scuro maps out the institutionalized and intergenerational forms of this bias as it is analogous and yet also distinct from other kinds of dehumanization, discrimination, and oppression. This project also includes a dialogical chapter on intersectionality with Devonya Havis and Lydia Brown, a philosopher and writer/activist respectively. Utilizing theorists like Judith Butler, Tobin Siebers, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Arendt to address ableism, Scuro thoroughly critiques the neoliberal culture and politics that underwrites ableist affections and phobias. This project exposes the many material and non-material harms of ableism, and it offers multiple avenues to better confront and resist ableism in its many forms. Scuro provides crucial insights into the many uninhabitable and unsustainable effects of ableism and how we might revise our intentions and desires for the sake of a less ableist world. Review Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies, by Jennifer Scuro in collaboration with Devonya Havis and Lydia X. Brown, is a vital new contribution to the annals of philosophy of disability and to philosophical discourse more generally. . . The book spans a wide spectrum of issues and concerns that the disability studies community has introduced into academic discourse, considers the political character of the ontological and ethical claims of other philosophers of disability, incorporates Scuro's personal reflections on her own social and institutional position as a white, nondisabled philosopher of disability with a disabled child, and highlights a fascinating and provocative dialogue that Scuro engages in with Havis, a Black disabled woman, and Brown, a disabled queer of color. Indeed, the attention that Scuro gives to the details of oft-overlooked conflicts and controversies that surround critical work on disability, the diversity and volume of research that she uses throughout the book, and the centrality to the aims and design of the book of the dialogue among Scuro and her interlocutors are among the book's most notable strengths. Taken together, these elements of Addressing Ableism combine to make it a unique philosophical journey.--Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy Addressing Ableism is a transformative work. The book provides a detailed and rigorous archaeology of contemporary ableism, and compellingly argues for the ethical imperative to resist it. It provides a powerful framework for such resistance in not only in its content but also its form. Its fusion of philosophical analysis with memoir and social critique make it both intellectually and emotionally affecting, and Scuro's dialogue with Lydia Brown and Devonya Havis models the kinds of conversations she hopes to provoke. This book is a major contribution to disability studies, and its insights expand the customary boundaries of the field.--Harold Braswell, St. Louis University About the Author Jennifer Scuro has a B.F.A. in Painting and Sculpture from St. John's University, a MA in Philosophy from Boston College and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The New School for Social Research. She is Associate Professor of Philosophy and former Chair of the Philosophy & Religious Studies Department at The College of New Rochelle in New York. She continues to work on her art while teaching undergraduate courses in global and applied Ethics, Feminist Theory, and Environmental Studies. She wrote the final chapter, "Theory Can Heal," for the anthology Why Race and Gender Still Matter (Yount et al., Pickering & Chatto, 2014). Her most recent research is in Disability Studies and her book Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Meditations through Disability Studies is forthcoming with Lexington Press