May Day and the Moon

"May Day and the Moon" is a playful audio exploration of childhood dreams of adult work. The storyteller, Grant Miller, is a non-binary queer disabled white person born with disabilities and having acquired disability later in life as well. Unlike mainstream disability-related stories, Grant never describes their disability nor names any diagnoses. This is done to invite audiences to trust the storyteller and to disinvite the possibility of an objectifying medical gaze. We approach the idea of work indirectly in a sound-rich audio story, challenging the standard interview format. Rather than overtly discuss unemployment, underemployment, and capitalism, the story focuses on the lack of disabled role models in the working world and lack of family encouragement to consider pursuing adult work. The story concludes with a celebration of the innovation and creativity that Grant has incorporated into their self-empowered, self-directed, joy-filled artistic life

PERSPECTIVES - Digital Influences on Sexual Discourse in Disabled Populations

The industry of sex aids for disabled people has been growing and becoming more nuanced, both with workers who facilitate manual sex aid and within the growing market of automated sex aids. Agency in sexual expression is often seen as an able-bodied activity and automated sex aids have yet to be considered with due rigor for general populations, including disabled populations. Here, we employ the grounded methodological choice of using digitally mediated discourses by disabled people, service providers, and activists to guide our inquiry into conversations that we, as members of the scientific community have generally neglected. We report on the financial, legal, and health implications of emerging digital technology driven changes in the landscape of sexual discourse for disabled populations. We then call for further investigation into this neglected but vitally important topic.Keywords: Automated sex aids; sexuality and disability; digital activism; sexual agency; sexual health; scientific researc

Staring at the Other: Seeing Defects in Recent Australian Poems

When it comes to encountering the body of the other, is poetic language bound to fail? Can failure nevertheless be productive? This paper discusses four recent Australian poems which depict public encounters with bodily otherness, taking up Emmanuel Levinas's suggestion that the other is experienced in a “defecting of disclosure”, which involves both an unsettling intimacy and a profound distance.The paper explores this paradox through two visual motifs – staring and hyperopia. When bodily otherness is encountered, this often prompts staring – which theorist Rosemary Garland Thomson sees as a site of relational and significatory potential, beginning “when ordinary seeing fails”. I argue that these poems, through the varying ways in which they stage awkward encounters with seemingly defective, disabled others, emphasise the defects in our own ability to clearly see the other.Keywords: Poetry; disability; the Other; staring, Emmanuel Levina

Pulling the Rug Out From Under (Neuro)Divergence in the Divergent Universe

Veronica Roth’s Divergent series explicitly portrays neurological diversity, along with questions of identity, family, class, choice, values, and power. It is often considered an empowering narrative for people who do not fit in, a common experience among the teen readers who are the intended audience of most young adult literature. However, it is not clear that this narrative truly supports neurodivergent people, despite neurogenetic differences being the explicit form of diversity the series’ events hinge upon. This article critically examines the portrayal of neurological difference in Roth’s universe through the neurodiversity paradigm, and finds that neurotypicality is significantly privileged by the narrative. Keywords: Neurodiversity; young adult literature; Veronica Roth; representation; autis

The Case of Intellectual Disability vs. the Death Penalty: A Foucauldian Analysis of Georgia’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Standard of Proof

Georgia was the first state in the United States to ban the execution of persons with intellectual disability, and did so 14 years prior to the federal mandate in Atkins v. Virginia (2002). In doing so, it became and remains the only state to invoke the highest of standards, beyond a reasonable doubt. When states use a standard higher than the lowest of three, defendants raising the claim of intellectual disability are placed at an increased risk for rights violations that may include lack of due process, the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment, and finally, in the extinction of life. The purpose of this case study is to analyze the 2013 legislative informational hearing hosted by the Georgia House of Representatives Non-Civil Judiciary committee on the state’s standard of proof using Foucault’s medico-judicial perspective. Based on this analysis, the second purpose of the study is to propose a position of advocacy and respective strategy for changing Georgia’s standard of proof of intellectual disability. Lastly, this article recommends a strategy of leveraging the medical model of intellectual disability in the criminal justice context as an instrument for diminishing the risk for unlawful execution and enhancing the securement of accommodations while in state penal custody, as per federal law.Keywords: Intellectual disability; death penalty; medico-judicial discourse; standard of proof; beyond a reasonable doubt; impressionist narrativ