#alison kafer

[thenervebible]

CONNIE PANZARINO at a pride march in Boston circa 1990

[ID: Connie is marching along in her sip 'n' puff (SNP) wheelchair. She is wearing a patterned poncho and sporting a green felt party crown on her head. She styles a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with her slicked back hair. She is smiling. Attached to the back of her wheelchair is a large green cardboard poster that reads "Trached Dykes Eat Pussy Without Comin' Up For Air!" followed by a pink upside-down triangle with a stick figure person in a wheelchair at the centre (a symbol for disabled women)].

the cyborg & the crip by Alison Kafer

[ID: “Trached dykes eat pussy without coming up for air.” Connie Panzarino, a longtime disability activist and out lesbian, would attach this sign to her wheelchair during Pride marches in Boston in the early 1990s. Shockingly explicit, her sign refuses to cast technology as cold, distancing, or disembodied/disembodying, presenting it instead as a source and site of embodied pleasure. “Trach” is an abbreviation of tracheotomy, a medical procedure in which a breathing tube is inserted directly into the trachea, bypassing the mouth and nose. Someone with a trach, then, can, in effect, breathe through her throat, freeing her mouth for other activities (another version of this sign is “Trached dykes french kiss without coming up for air”). From a cyborgian perspective, this sign is brilliantly provocative and productive. It draws on the pervasive idea that adaptive technologies grant superior abilities,not merely replacing a lost capacity but enhancing it, yet it does so in a highly subversive way. The message here isn’t about blending in, about passing as normal or hypernormal, but about publicly announcing the viability of a queer disabled location. It’s disnormalizing, adamantly refusing compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able bodiedness, and homonormativity. As Corbett O’Toole argues, it challenges the perceived passivity of disabled women, presenting them as actively pleasuring their partners, thereby graphically refuting stereotypes linking physical disability with nonsexuality.]

[nothingbutsunflowers]

Indeed, this kind of anticipatory scheduling is not limited to working with attendants, but often extends to working with and in one's own mind/body. For those who live with chronic fatigue or pain, for example, the present moment must often be measured against the moment to come: if I go to this talk now, I will be too tired for that class later; if I want to make that show tomorrow night, I need to stay home today. This idea of conserving energy, of anticipating, can be read as queer in that it bucks American ideals of productivity at all costs, of sacrificing one's body for work. In other words, how might we begin to read these practices of self-care not as preserving one's body for productive work, but as refusing such regimes in order to make room for pleasure?

— Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip, Indiana University Press, 2013, pp. 39. (Chapter One: "Time for Disability Studies and a Future for Crips")

[localfaecryptid]

Nothing About Us Without Us

I recently had to do a rhetorical analysis essay for my composition class and I chose Alison Kafer's amazing essay "Imagined Futures". I liked it so much that I decided to publish it to my Substack. The formatting had to be weird due to the assignment requirements so I might post a more polished version where those clunkier bits are taken out, but I also think it's a good template for how to write your first rhetorical essay if you want to dip your toes into the water.

[queerliblib]

It’s Disability Pride Month! Here are some great nonfiction picks for this month & year round. 💕

🌈QUEER NONFICTION FOR DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH🌈

“Queerly Autistic” by Erin Ekins

“Feminist Queer Crip” by Alison Kafer

“Leg” by Greg Marshall

“Neuroqueer Heresies” by Nick Walker 

“The Future is Disabled” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

“Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman” by Laura Kate Dale

“The Autistic Trans Guide to Life” by Jenn Purkis & Dr. Wenn Lawson 

“Crip Kinship” by Shady Kauai

“Sensory” by Ben Ollerton

“A Quick Guide to Sex & Disability” by A. Andrews 

“Care Work” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

“Mean Little deaf Queer” by Terry Galloway

“Bless the Blood” by Walela Nehanda

[thecanyon]

access intimacy by mia mingus/feminist, queer, crip by alison kafer

ID in alt text

[identitty-dickruption]

Hi! If you feel like it, would you share some resources/thoughts on sexual ableism/ableism/queerphobia? If not, it’s okay! Thank you, regardless!

hello yes :D <- completely the wrong emoticon for the situation but this topic is exciting to me. sorry

sexual ableism is an umbrella term for types of ableism that focus on sex and sexuality. the way it presents often intersects with a person's gender, race, sexuality, and the disability/disabilities they have

in particular, it tends to appeal to ideas about how much agency a disabled person has or should have. when you don't believe that a disabled person should have (or does have) agency or control over themselves, the idea of them having a sexuality or a sexual life seems dangerous. an outcome of this is that disabled people are either labeled as inherently asexual or inherently hyper-sexual, as both of these things are understood as a lack of sexual control

because queerness is seen as an inherently deviant kind of sexual expression, the queer disabled person is understood as a particular kind of threat that must be suppressed and surveilled. queer sexual expression is less accessible for many disabled people, both because they are not seen as having sexual agency and because heteronormativity dictates that anything other than straightness is suspect. this is particularly true for disabled people who have carers or who live in residential care

in a way, understandings about how disabled people should or shouldn't express our sexuality inherently Queers disabled sexual relations, but that should not be used to ignore the particular struggles of the queer-crip

as for things I've read!

I really like this essay about blindness and asexuality by Keisha Scott, this chapter of feminist queer crip by Alison Kafer, and this article about sexual agency and intellectual disability

I also just finished reading Crip Intimacy: Sockfriends, Sexuality, and ‘Cripped Things’ by Hannah Quinn, but I'm unsure about a version of it that isn't paywalled

I hope that answers your question!

[writtenwolves]

"To eliminate disability is to eliminate the possibility of discovering alternative ways of being in the world, to foreclose the possibility of recognizing and valuing our interdependence."

Alison Kafer, Debating Feminist Futures: Slippery Slopes, Cultural Anxiety, and the Case of the Deaf Lesbians

[moniquill]

As illustrated by Woman on the Edge of Time, and as manifested in the furor surrounding McCullough and Duchesneau's reproductive choices, disability is often seen as a difference that has no place in the future. Disability is a problem that must be eliminated, a hindrance to one's future opportunities, a drag on one's quality of life. Speaking directly about the Duchesneau and McCullough case, bioethicist Alta Charo argues, “The question is whether the parents have violated the sacred duty of parenthood, which is to maximize to some reasonable degree the advantages available to their children. I'm loath to say it, but I think it's a shame to set limits on a child's potential.” Similar claims are made in opposition to same-sex parenting; critics argue that children raised in queer households will have a lower quality of life than children raised in heterosexual ones. However, in both of these situations, it is assumed not only that disability and queerness inherently and irreversibly lower one's quality of life but also that there is only one possible understanding of “quality of life” and that everyone knows what “it” is without discussion or elaboration.

-Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip

[antisocialcrypt]

2024 Reads

As the title says, these are my reads from the year. Some were great, some were mandatory. So, I'm going to talk about it. Fyi this count does not include articles, journals, or internet based folklore. This only includes physcial (and kindle) published works. Here we go!

Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll

Feminist Disability Studies edited by Kim Q. Hall

Never Never by Serena Valentino

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability by Jasbir K. Puar

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

espresso shots & forget-me-nots by Parker Lee

The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzi Lee

Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States by Henry Glassie

Material Vernaculars: Objects, Images, and Their Social Worlds edited by Jason Baird Jackson

She followed the moon back to herself by Amanda Lovelace

Queer Adolescence by Charlie McNabb

Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

How to They/Them by Stuart Getty

Nonbinary Lives: An Anthology by Ben Vincent and others

Gender in the Digital Sphere by Barbara Mitra and others

She/He/They/Me by Robyn Ryle

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Up in Flames by Eden Finley and Saxon James

texts i never sent by Ariel Day

The Words I Could Never Say by Yogesh Chandra

save me an orange by Hayley Grace

I reccomend a lot of these and if anyone wants to talk about them im game.

Until next time.

C.

[picklejarred]

My Top Books of 2024

hello! i read 191 books last year and here are my top 20 (in no particular order)

- The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

- Africa Is Not A Country by Dipo Faloyin

- Bodyminds (Re)imagined by Sami Schalk

- Letters To My Weird Sisters by Joanne Limburg

- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

- The X-Files: The Truth Is Still Out There by Dr Bethan Jones

- Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones by Torrey Peters

- Constructing A Nervous System by Margo Jefferson

- Last Seen Online by Wren James

- Before We Were Trans by Dr Kit Heyam

- Burn This by Lanford Wilson

- Late Bloomer by Clem Bastow

- One Hundred Days by Alice Pung

- Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang

- Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer

- When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté

- Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies by bell hooks

- The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

- Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney

- Trauma Stewardship by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky

Please share your faves from this year to help me inform my tbr for 2025!!!

[thenervebible]

FEMINIST QUEER CRIP: Bodies of Nature by Alison Kafer

[lesbianboyfriend]

not sure if this has been making the rounds in the mutualsphere or not so i have elected to tag myself to share to top books from the first half of 2023 ^_^ hehe

[books in order: jane eyre by charlotte brontë, filthy animals by brandon taylor, peaces by helen oyeyemi, playing the whore by melissa gira grant, the queer art of failure by jack halberstam, disability visibility edited by alice wong, and feminist queer crip by alison kafer]

like i said i don’t know if anyone has done this yet this year so i’m gonna tag @andromerot @preachersdaughtermp3 @dreamertrilogys @vulpinesaint @boygirloser if you haven’t already and want to and also literally any other book mutuals pls tell me your favorite books <33 and if u already did tag me i want to seeee okay kisses!!

[vulpine111]

It's hard to decide what books I want to read. I'm going to make two lists. One featuring books I already have access to, and one with books I intend to buy.

I'll try to rank them by priority, but it's hard to figure out what's most important in this regard. The shelf I bought from Target is already almost full. I will have to order another shelf fairly soon.

BOOKS TO BUY:

Drawing Dynamic Hands by Burne Hogarth

Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth

Lemegeton: The Completed Books I-V: Ars Goetia, Ars Theurgia Goetia, Ars Paulina, Ars Almadel, and Ars Notoria

Enochian Grimoire: Marchosias Courage Magick

Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami

Romancing The Shadow by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf

Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality by Connie Zweig

Disability Intimacy by Alice Wong

Dying With Confidence: A Tibetan Buddhist Guide to Preparing for Death

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Don't Throw Me Away by Lex Voytek

Real Service by Joshua Tenpenny & Raven Kaldera

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer

Persephone's Pathway: Wisdom, Magick & Growth

BOOKS TO READ:

Meeting The Shadow by Connie Zweig

Finding Water by Julia Cameron

Keep Going by Austin Kleon

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Towards Bodily Autonomy by Justice Rivera

Reclaiming Pleasure by Holly Richmond

The Knot: Michael Gira

[punchyfeeley]

whatcha working on lately? what cool new analysis are you writing? what are your deep thoughts yet to be written?

When writers you admire ask what you’re writing <3

I just finished (for now- I think I’ll go back and break it down into something new eventually) a paper on Crip and Jew Temporalities or in less obnoxious academic language: the way we think about and experience time as Jews and Disabled people. One day I’ll write a more fun paper about just the trippy weirdness or even all the lovely and liberating facets of Jew and crip time, but this time I found myself (understandably) wrapped up in how the ways we think about time and our place within it can keep us back from liberation.

Because this is how my brain works, here is how it began:

“It is the mythic South that is barren, and the present South that clings to those myths. The South of which I write is far from physically barren, marked by its lush humidity. There is heat here, and wetness, and where these exist, life will also be, and where life, spirit…Regeneration cannot occur through arid myths...Neither will cultivation occur, though, from under the mastery by poor whites, as Mencken feared, for privileging dries the marrow from within the branches. The verdant South is of its own wetness; it is as pungent as the woods after a June rain.” From This Corner of Canaan by Reta Ugena Whitlock

"Israel has reinvented the ghetto, and embedded itself in the irrational exaltation of a mythical past. It perceives its future only in the intoxication of its strength, its proud isolation defended by tanks and fighter planes" From Revolutionary Yiddishland

"How can we wear the mantle of the martyred ghetto Jew? / We turned our backs on everything that brought our people through...But the thing you hate in others is the thing you hate in you...And we will all have to learn it anew / not only as a victim but a perpetrator too." From Daniel Khan's song "Jew in You"

"I am starting to worry that, too often, what comes after crip is a claim to innocence. In refusing the ableist stance that people are to blame for their illnesses and impairments...are we too easily making claims to innocence? Are we dismantling the structure of blame, or simply leaving it intact for others?" Alison Kafer, After Crip, Crip Afters

So I wrote about that. About time and how we imagine ourselves within it. About ideas of victimhood, innocence, and care predicated upon ideas of deservedness. If you or anyone else is interested in the paper, I'm happy to share. Though I recognize it is as my mother told me "a bit niche". Before this I wrote about Jewish rationalism, superstition, and misogyny which was arguably more niche? Anyway I genuinely wouldn't be writing about this if not for your writing so thank you again for that!

I wrote a bunch of short papers about nature vs society as a false dualism and racism, citizenship and the law. They're all interconnected and I'm thinking about salvaging them for parts and making something new.

[queerliblib]

Do you have any philosophy books or queer philosophy recs for Pride Month? I want to beat my philosophy professors over the head (metaphorically of course)

oooo fuck yeah okay so first thoughts are:

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer - envisioning new futures through environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability (oh here’s the audiobook of it)

Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker - link is for the audio book (available) our ebook copy has a 6mo wait time 😬. By a queer autistic scholar, contains notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam - about "finding alternatives-to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society” through an investigation of ‘low theory’ (in contrast to ‘high theory’/‘high culture’)

okay so not all of these are traditional philosophy, per se, however they are heavier on the theorizing so if you’re hungry for more queer theory I also recommend these:

Queering Anarchism

Cruising Utopia

Identity Poetics

Who’s Afraid of Gender (any Judith Butler is worth a read though, also in audio)

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on our Sex Obsessed Culture (also in audio)

Y’all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia

[libraryben]

Open Access

Introduction: On Crip Authorship and Disability as Method. Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez

Section I: Writing

1.Writing While Adjunct. Mimi Khúc.

2. Chronic Illness, Slowness, and the Time of Writing. Mel Y. Chen.

3. Composing Perseveration / Perseverative Composing. M. Remi Yergeau.

4. Mad Black Rants. La Marr Jurelle Bruce.

5. Plain Language for Disability Culture. Kelsie Acton.

6. Peter Pan World: In-System Authorship. Isolation Nation.

7. LatDisCrit and Counterstories. Alexis Padilla.

Section II: Research

8. Virtual Ethnography. Emily Lim Rogers.

9. Learning Disability Justice Through Critical Participatory Action Research. Laura J. Wernick.

10. Decolonial Disability Studies. Xuan Thuy Nguyen.

11. On Still Reading Like a Depressed Transsexual. Cameron Awkward-Rich.

12. On Trauma in Research on Illness, Disability, and Care. Laura Mauldin.

13. Injury, Recovery, and Representation in Shikaakwa. Laurence Ralph.

14. Collaborative Research on the Möbius Strip. Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp.

15. Lessons in Yielding: Crip Refusal and Ethical Research Praxis. Zoë H. Wool.

16. Creating a Fully Accessible Digital Helen Keller Archive. Helen Selsdon.

Section III: Genre

17. Manifesting Manifestos. Alison Kafer.

18. Public Scholarship as Disability Justice. Jaipreet Virdi.

19. Crip Autotheory. Ellen Samuels.

20. Disability Life Writing in India. Mohaiminul Islam and Ujjwal Jana.

21. The History and Politics of Krip-Hop. Leroy F. Moore, Jr. and Keith Jones.

22. Verbal and Nonverbal Metaphor. Asa Ito.

Section IV: Publishing

23. Accessible Academic Publishing. Cynthia Wu.

24. #DisabilityStudiesTooWhite. Kristen Bowen, Rachel Kuo, and Mara Mills.

25. A Philosophical Analysis of ASL/English Bilingual Publishing. Teresa Blankmeyer Burke.

26. Crip World-Making. Robert McRuer.

27. Disability in the Library and Librarianship. Stephanie S. Rosen.

28. The Rebuttal: A Protactile Poem. John Lee Clark.

Section V: Media

29. Crip Making. Aimi Hamraie.

30. Fiction Podcasts Model Description by Design. Georgina Kleege.

31. Podcasting for Disability Justice. Bri M.

32. Willful Dictionaries and Crip Authorship in CART. Louise Hickman.

33. How to Model AAC. Lateef H. McLeod.

34. Digital Spaces and the Right to Information for Deaf People During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Zimbabwe. Lovemore Chidemo, Agness Chindimba, and Onai Hara.

35. Crip Indigenous Storytelling Across the Digital Divide. Jen Deerinwater.