[ecrea] CFP: “Constructing (Dis)Ability”

Call for Submissions

TransScripts, an interdisciplinary online journal in the Humanities and 
Social Sciences at UC Irvine
Volume IV: 2014
“Constructing (Dis)Ability”

Journal Publication Date: March 31, 2014
Deadline for the submission of abstracts/papers: January 10, 2014

TransScripts – the interdisciplinary online journal in the Humanities 
and Social Sciences based at the University of California, Irvine – 
invites graduate students to submit their work for publication. The 
theme of our fourth volume will be “Constructing (Dis)Ability.”

Who is “able” and who is “disabled?” Who decides, and based upon what 
criteria? In exploring the multiple and intersecting matrices of power 
these questions evoke, it becomes clear that discourses of ability are 
as ubiquitous as they are overlooked, as protean as they are embedded.

On the one hand, we recognize the common distinction between 
“impairment” and “disability” advanced by disability studies scholars 
and codified in W.H.O., U.N., U.S., and U.K. disability laws. This 
distinction posits “impairment” as the reality of physical, emotional, 
or cognitive difference, and “disability” as the social understanding 
and implications of that difference. On the other hand, we acknowledge 
that ability is, in many ways, as elastic a concept as disability, and 
encourage submissions that problematize both sides of the binary, as 
well as the binary itself.

The aging process and aleatory events alike render impairment a near 
certainty for the majority of the population. The experience of 
disability is—to a certain extent—blind to privilege. However, it is in 
examining disability that some of the most intransigent social justice 
issues come to the fore. What it means to be “disabled” is contingent on 
questions of access, be it access to healthcare, education, political 
representation or the judicial system. In the United States and around 
the world, race, class, and gender often function as gatekeepers, either 
facilitating or restricting that access.

While the field of disability studies continues to gain traction within 
the academy, Trans-Scripts understands ability as a lens of analysis 
that resists compartmentalization. Accordingly, we encourage scholars 
from a wide range of backgrounds to contribute their ideas. We 
appreciate and will consider pieces that speak not only to the social 
construction of disability, but also to the material—and 
political—consequences of that construction. Our editorial collective 
will read submissions from disciplines including (but not limited to): 
history, art history, literature, philosophy, theology, psychology, 
education, political science, anthropology, sociology, informatics, 
public policy, public health, and bioethics. We also eagerly seek the 
perspectives of scholars working in fat studies, queer studies,women’s 
and gender studies, film and visual studies, urban studies, science and 
technology studies, cultural studies, and critical race studies. “We are 
happy to consider coautho
red submissions, and especially welcome faculty-graduate student 
collaborations.”

Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:
The gendering of disability
The ethics of accommodations—specifically in sports
Cochlear implants and Deaf culture
The racialization of disability
Norms and pathologization in the concepts of impairment, ability, 
disability
Sexual norms and the "disabled" body
The concept of normal functioning
Disability and social justice
Ontologies and epistemologies of disability
Educating people with disabilities: challenges and opportunities
The New Disability History
Ability as rhetoric
“Crip Studies” and Alison Kafer's Feminist Queer Crip.
Rendering the subaltern body
Selfidentification
and selfadvocacy The disabled body in virtual space(s)
Built environments as conditioning bodily norms and expectations
The neurodiversity movement
The relationship between transgender studies and disability studies
The politics of designer babies
Ethnographies of ability and disability
The metaphysics and/or phenomenology of embodiment
Disability as socioeconomic indicator
Discussions of the recent US failure to ratify the U.N. Convention on 
the Rights of People with Disabilities
The politics of PostTraumatic
Stress Disorder
The therapy/enhancement distinction
Recent changes to the DSM
“Obamacare” and the disability community
Theories of pain

Trans-Scripts welcomes all submissions that engage topics related to 
“Constructing (Dis)Ability.” They may, but certainly need not, address 
the examples listed above. As we believe that scholarship from a variety 
of approaches can help inform contemporary understandings, submissions 
need not conform to any disciplinary, methodological, temporal, or other 
criteria. They need only be original, well researched, and properly 
cited. English language contributions from all universities in all 
countries will be considered.

Faculty Contributors
Selected graduate student work will appear alongside contributions from 
renowned faculty members,including editorial pieces and scholarly 
articles. Past contributors have included Étienne Balibar,Hortense 
Spillers, Lee Edelman, Roderick Ferguson, and Temple Grandin.

Submission Guidelines and Review Process
The deadline for submission is 10 January 2014. All submissions should 
be written in English. The total word count should be between 3,000 and 
12,000 words, including footnotes. Explanatory footnotes should be kept 
to a minimum. Submissions should employ the MLA style of citation (for 
further information on the journal’s submission guidelines and mission 
statement, see the journal website at 
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/collective/hctr/trans-cripts/index.html). 
All pieces should be submitted as a word document attached in an email 
(totransscriptsjournal /at/ gmail.com). The email should include your name, 
institution, program/department,and an email address at which you can be 
contacted. Please also include a short abstract of less than 300 words 
describing the content and argument of
 the piece.

Comments and General Inquiries
Please direct all general inquiries about the journal or any comments on 
published pieces to our 2013 volume’s Editor-in-Chief, Andrea Milne, at 
(milnea /at/ uci.edu).


----
Baden Offord, Ph.D.
Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights
Acting Course Coordinator, BA
School of Arts and Social Sciences
Southern Cross University

PO Box 157, Lismore 2480 Australia

e: (baden.offord /at/ scu.edu.au)
t: + 61 2 6620 3162
f: + 61 2 6622 1683

Staff Page: 
http://www.scu.edu.au/staffdirectory/person_detail.php?person=9217
Latest Publication in Asian Studies Review: 
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KXFHeKfEhZNcFtcXJyzk/full


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