Crip Theory

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 (both also available from NYU Press). 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 (NYU Press, 1997), The Left at War (NYU Press, 2009), What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and " Bias" in Higher Education (2006), and Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996).

"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) "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 "The members of the Committee were especially impressed by McRuers 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. McRuers book combines the public and the private work of queer studies in surprisingly new ways." - Ed Madden (Gay and Lesbian Caucus for the MLA) "McRuer charts new intersections for disability studies, queer studies, and American studies. His work is [at its] most vertiginous and rich . . . as he moves swiftly from cinema to street gangs to coming out Crip." (American Quarterly) "Engaging, expansive, and generous." (Sex Roles)

• Foreword: Another Word Is Possible, by Michael Berube Acknowledgments Introduction: Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence 1 Coming Out Crip: Malibu Is Burning 2 Capitalism and Disabled Identity: Sharon Kowalski, Interdependency, and Queer Domesticity 3 Noncompliance: The Transformation, Gary Fisher, and the Limits of Rehabilitation 4 Composing Queerness and Disability: The Corporate University and Alternative Corporealities 5 Crip Eye for the Normate Guy: Queer Theory, Bob Flanagan, and the Disciplining of Disability Studies Epilogue: Specters of Disability Notes Works Cited IndexAbout the Author