I was midway through my MA in English Literature before I walked into my first critical disability studies course. Truthfully, prior to registration, I had no idea there was such a field. But I needed to take a theoretical discourse class, and Disability Theory was the one being offered. Because I don’t consider myself disabled, I naively entered the class without much sense of disability’s influence on my worldview. While I knew I had encountered disability in literature (Richard III and Hazel Grace came to mind), I assumed the course would be informative but ultimately peripheral to my work as an English student.
Looking back, I know I did not yet have the language to recognize how deeply ideas of normalcy, presumed able-bodiedness, and independence had been shaping my literary interpretation. As the semester progressed, I found that disability studies would give me that language—and, in doing so, would reveal just how much I had been missing. Where I had previously seen disability in literature as symbol and metaphor, I began to recognize it as lived experience shaped by social conditions, medical intervention, and political influence. I became aware of systems that defined certain bodies and minds as exceptional, and noted the ways in which my own body and positionality influenced my interpretations.
The more I became acquainted with the field, the more thoughtful of a reader I became, even of texts with no obviously disabled characters present. I reconsidered the way I viewed and discussed literature and media, reading for complexity, contradiction, agency, and constraint, rather than for inspirational or tragic figures. Challenging some authors’ treatments of disabled characters helped me clarify both my critical commitments and my sense of self. Projects from my Disability Theory course pushed me to reassess Ebenezer Scrooge’s treatment of the Cratchit family, a line of inquiry that eventually became my master’s thesis, and even to undertake a critical analysis of how disability is understood in the music of Taylor Swift. Before I knew it, disability theory had followed me into my other coursework, shaping papers and presentations that later became conference talks and publication projects. Two years later, I am in an English PhD program, with my research primarily focused, of course, on disability studies.
In the preface to the second edition of his essential compendium, The Disability Studies Reader, Lennard Davis notes that “just because disability studies is on the map doesn’t mean that it is easy to find. We should not downplay the fact that disabilities are still often forgotten when the litany of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and so on are articulated.” In the two decades since this edition was published, the field of critical disability studies has seen significant growth, with some colleges and universities even offering dedicated Disability Studies majors. Still, I find that this field is too often overlooked, and there are countless students who, like me, complete entire degrees without ever realizing how profoundly disability studies could reshape their studies and challenge their assumptions. To them, I say:
Take a disability studies course. You’ll never read the same way again.
Briley Wyckoff
Alpha Pi Epsilon Chapter, Alumna
Utah Tech University
PhD student in Literary and Culture Studies at the University of Utah
Sigma Tau Delta
Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honor Society, was founded in 1924 at Dakota Wesleyan University. The Society strives to
- Confer distinction for high achievement in English language and literature in undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies;
- Provide, through its local chapters, cultural stimulation on college campuses and promote interest in literature and the English language in surrounding communities;
- Foster all aspects of the discipline of English, including literature, language, and writing;
- Promote exemplary character and good fellowship among its members;
- Exhibit high standards of academic excellence; and
- Serve society by fostering literacy.
With over 900 active chapters located in the United States and abroad, there are more than 1,000 Faculty Advisors, and approximately 9,000 members inducted annually.
Sigma Tau Delta also recognizes the accomplishments of professional writers who have contributed to the fields of language and literature.
