Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of power. Although post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media within pre-established, socially constructed structures.
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory, or a combination of multiple factors. Disabilities can be present from birth or can be acquired during a person's lifetime. Historically, disabilities have only been recognized based on a narrow set of criteria—however, disabilities are not binary and can be present in unique characteristics depending on the individual. A disability may be readily visible, or invisible in nature.
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies and women's studies. The term "queer theory" can have various meanings depending upon its usage, but has been broadly associated with the study and theorization of gender and sexual practices that exist outside of heterosexuality, and which challenge the notion that heterosexual desire is "normal". Following social constructivist developments in sociology, queer theorists are often critical of what they consider essentialist views of sexuality and gender. Instead, they study those concepts as social and cultural phenomena, often through an analysis of the categories, binaries, and language in which they are said to be portrayed.
Bodymind is an approach to understand the relationship between the human body and mind where they are seen as a single integrated unit. It attempts to address the mind–body problem and resists the Western traditions of mind–body dualism. The term bodymind is also typically seen and encountered in disability studies, referring to the intricate and often inseparable relationship between the body and the mind, and how these two units might act as one. The field of psychosomatic medicine investigates the embodied manifestations of psychological processes.
Disability studies is an academic discipline that examines the meaning, nature, and consequences of disability. Initially, the field focused on the division between "impairment" and "disability", where impairment was an impairment of an individual's mind or body, while disability was considered a social construct. This premise gave rise to two distinct models of disability: the social and medical models of disability. In 1999 the social model was universally accepted as the model preferred by the field. However, in recent years, the division between the social and medical models has been challenged. Additionally, there has been an increased focus on interdisciplinary research. For example, recent investigations suggest using "cross-sectional markers of stratification" may help provide new insights on the non-random distribution of risk factors capable of acerbating disablement processes.
James I. Charlton is an American author, disability rights activist, and Executive Vice President of Access Living in Chicago.
Extrapolation is an academic journal covering speculative fiction, established in 1959. It was the first journal in its field and is published by Liverpool University Press.
David Bolt is the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies and the director of the Centre for Culture & Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University, where he is also Professor of Disability Studies and Interdisciplinarity.
Science fiction studies is the common name for the academic discipline that studies and researches the history, culture, and works of science fiction and, more broadly, speculative fiction.
Andrew John Milner is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University. From 2014 until 2019 he was also Honorary Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. In 2013 he was Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin.
Oxford English Limited (OEL) was a socialist-feminist group of undergraduate and postgraduate students campaigning for progressive reforms in the Oxford University English Faculty between 1982 and 1992. OEL's demands included the abolition of compulsory Anglo-Saxon and new optional papers in women’s writing and in literary theory.
Robert McRuer is an American theorist who has contributed to fields in transnational queer and disability studies. McRuer is known as being one of the founding scholars involved in forming the field of queer disability studies, particularly for a theoretical outlook known as crip theory. He is currently professor of English at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.
Ato Quayson is a Ghanaian literary critic and Professor of English at Stanford University where he acts as the current chair of the department. He is also the chair of the newly established Department of African and African American Studies. He was formerly a Professor of English at New York University (NYU), and before that was University Professor of English and inaugural Director of the Centre for Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. His writings on African literature, postcolonial studies, disability studies, urban studies and in literary theory have been widely published. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and the Royal Society of Canada (2013), and in 2019 was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He was Chief Examiner in English of the International Baccalaureate (2005–07), and has been a member of the Diaspora and Migrations Project Committee of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the UK, and the European Research Council award grants panel on culture and cultural production (2011–2017). He is a former President of the African Studies Association.
Martin Paul Eve is a British academic, writer, computer programmer, and disability rights campaigner. He is the Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck College, University of London, Principal R&D Developer at Crossref, and was Visiting Professor of Digital Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University until 2022. He is known for his work on contemporary literary metafiction, computational approaches to the study of literature, and open-access policy. Together with Dr Caroline Edwards, he is co-founder of the Open Library of Humanities (OLH).
Alison Kafer is an American academic specializing in feminist, queer, and disability theory. As of 2019, she is an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the author of the book Feminist, Queer, Crip.
Shahd Alshammari is a Kuwaiti writer, academic scholar and assistant professor of the English language. She is well known for her researches that focus on human and women's rights, disability issues and, recently, illness narrative. She published six books, in total, three of which she was the author, and the other three co-author. Additionally, she participated in over 15 conference, both as attendee and Keynote speaker, and discussed different topics in the fields of literature and culture. In 2019, she was nominated for the British Council Alumni Awards – Social Impact. In 2021 she won Outstanding Monograph of the Year from the National Communication Association's (NAC).
Eli Clare is an American writer, activist, educator, and speaker. His work focuses on queer, transgender, and disability issues. Clare was one of the first scholars to popularize the bodymind concept.
M. Remi Yergeau is an American academic in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies, digital studies, queer rhetoric, disability studies, and theories of mind. As of 2024, Yergeau is an Arthur F. Thurnau associate professor of Digital Studies and English at the University of Michigan.
