\u3cem\u3eThe Difference Disability Makes.\u3c/em\u3e Rod Michalko.

Book note for Rod Michalko, The Difference that Disability Makes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002, $ 19.95 paperback

Paralympic cultures: disability as paradigm

This is an article about the Paralympic Games of summer 2012 and the experience of watching them. It rehearses the use of disability as political and cultural identity in relation to theatre and performance studies. Disability identity is not an identity based on similitude, but is a complex and nuanced relationship between singularity of embodied social experience and glimmers of common ground. Taking the works of Rod Michalko and Petra Kuppers as a representative foundation of disability studies, the article offers disability as an epistemological standpoint, a way of thinking, and not an object of thought. The argument works through close readings of three examples to introduce the theatre and performance studies reader to the notion of disability as a paradigm for the consideration of ideas of difference, similitude and identity. The process of reading the Paralympics from the perspective of a disabled person, bike riding sports fan and disability performance scholar gestures to the scope and potential of disability performance studies. The article accumulates three examples of one disabled person navigating a complex set of positions, all of which are iterations of disability. Whilst this critical approach might imply solipsism, the article also considers disability as community

“This is the Way I Was”: Urban Ethics, Temporal Logics, and the Politics of Cure

This article employs Eli Clare\u27s concept of the politics of cure in order to discuss issues of disability, temporality, and ethical relations to rehabilitation, restoration, and cure in the Sex and the (Motor) City: Ecologies of Middlesex special cluster

Making disabled people’s voices vulnerable

This paper attempts to utilise creative writing to contribute to discourse in the fields of critical disability studies and inclusive education. Twelve semi-structured interviews were carried out with young disabled adults with different physical and/ or sensorial disabilities who followed or were following courses at further and higher education levels. Research findings that show day-to-day experiences that disabled persons live are presented in short poems to reveal their presumed struggles. The evidence espoused that inclusive education is a process and a way of living. Support from parents, peers, administrators and lecturers are key to individual and community building. Self-help strategies are crucial in developing agency which, with a washback effect would transform society into a more democratic one. However, disabled persons need to be given the opportunity by eradicating the deficit mentality in society towards disability and disabled persons. The discussion unveils how society makes the voices of disabled persons disempowered and vulnerable. It is suggested that in Malta, wider opportunities for disabled persons to pursue their education at further and higher education levels and to enter the employment sector are needed to promulgate inclusive communities. Entities need to emulate a positive and proactive attitude towards social inclusion and cohesion. The contribution of this paper is to create awareness about the dire need for social praxis in fostering emancipation and social justice from a rights-based standpoint in favour of disabled people.peer-reviewe

A New Course on Creativity in an Engineering Program: Foundations and Issues

The importance of innovation in the world's economy, now undeniable, draws great attention to the need to improve organizations' creative potential. In the last 60 years, hundreds of books have been written on the subject and hundreds of webpages display information on how to be more creative and achieve innovation. Several North American and European universities offer graduated programs in creativity. However, building an effective and validated creativity training program is not without challenges. Because of the nature of their work, engineers are often asked to be innovative. Without aiming for a degree in creativity, could future engineers benefit from training programs in creativity? This article presents the conceptual framework and pedagogical elements of a new course in creativity for engineering students.Comment: 10 pages, Intl Conf on Innovative Design and Manufacturing (pp. 270-275). Aug 13-15, Montreal. IEEE Conference Proceeding

Breaking the rules: Summer camping experiences and the lives of Ontario children growing up with polio in the 1940s and 1950s

This chapter presents an analysis from a critical disability studies history framework developed for a research project. It discusses how the research was conducted using an oral history method and how the analysis was produced. Oral history narratives of individuals living with polio are viewed as the most appropriate and important way to learn about and understand the meaning of polio for Canadians during the time period of 1927–1957. The chapter provides a historical backdrop to describe the development of some Ontario Society for Crippled Children (OSCC) camps, the philosophic basis for the camps, and the intended goals of the camping program. It deconstructs the philosophy of the OSCC, and presents some overarching themes. Each of the themes illustrates an aspect of the ableist dominant view of disability in relation to understandings of disabled children's lives at that time. The chapter introduces the counter narratives of the participants who attended these camps and their everyday lived experiences

Strong morphological defects in conditional Arabidopsis abp1 knock-down mutants generated in absence of functional ABP1 protein

The Auxin Binding Protein 1 (ABP1) is one of the most studied proteins in plants. Since decades ago, it has been the prime receptor candidate for the plant hormone auxin with a plethora of described functions in auxin signaling and development. The developmental importance of ABP1 has recently been questioned by identification of Arabidopsis thaliana abp1 knock-out alleles that show no obvious phenotypes under normal growth conditions. In this study, we examined the contradiction between the normal growth and development of the abp1 knock-outs and the strong morphological defects observed in three different ethanol-inducible abp1 knock-down mutants ( abp1-AS, SS12K, SS12S). By analyzing segregating populations of abp1 knock-out vs. abp1 knock-down crosses we show that the strong morphological defects that were believed to be the result of conditional down-regulation of ABP1 can be reproduced also in the absence of the functional ABP1 protein. This data suggests that the phenotypes in abp1 knock-down lines are due to the off-target effects and asks for further reflections on the biological function of ABP1 or alternative explanations for the missing phenotypic defects in the abp1 loss-of-function alleles

Disability Studies: What’s the Point?

[Excerpt] While the content of these courses had much to offer in terms of furthering our understanding of the experience of ‘chronic illness’ and the ensuing economic and social outcomes in terms of daily living for disabled people and their families, the central focus always seemed to be either on the physical and psychological consequences of the condition, or the complexity of the relationship between the disabled individual and their social environment. ‘Disability’, usually defined as ‘functional limitation’, was caused by either: chronic illness/impairment or the complex interaction between the limitations of the body and/or mind, and society at large. The dominant ‘personal tragedy’ theory of disability was never seriously questioned and, with one or two notable exceptions, meaningful explanations for society’s responses to, and treatment of, people with impairments, whether real or ascribed, and ‘labelled’ disabled, were conspicuous by their absence