RHETORICIAN SPOTLIGHT JAY DOLMAGE DISABILITY STUDIES DISABILITY RHETORIC

RHETORICIAN SPOTLIGHT: JAY DOLMAGE DISABILITY STUDIES

DISABILITY RHETORIC, CH. 1, BY JAY DOLMAGE TODAY’S READING

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Assistant Professor of English – University of Waterloo Focuses his work on disability studies – founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies Author of two books – Disability Rhetoric (2014) & Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability (2018)

RHETORIC THROUGH THE YEARS Some Classical Definitions The art of persuasion (Aristotle) A good man speaking well (Quintilian) Speech designed to persuade (Cicero) More Recent Definitions A mode of altering reality […] by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action (Lloyd Bitzer) The art, practice, and study of human communication (Andrea Lunsford) The study of the ways that power circulates through discourse (Dolmage)

RHETORIC & DISCOURSE IS (LOOSELY DEFINED AS) COMMUNICATION THAT OCCURS AS A CONVERSATION

“I will argue for a critical DOLMAGE WRITES… alliance between disability studies and rhetoric. Disability studies would mandate that rhetoricians pay close attention to embodied difference; in return, rhetorical approaches would give disability studies practitioners means of understanding the debates that in part shape these bodies. ” Disability Rhetoric (2014)

PROBLEMS WITH ACCESSIBILITY “At the very best, we get digital ‘ramps’ that actually cost people with disabilities, or that make learning much more difficult for them -- these are ramps in the back door of higher education, not in the front door. ” –Jay Dolmage, in a 2017 email interview with Inside Higher Ed.

HOW CAN RHETORIC HELP? “the study of the ways that power circulates through discourse” (Dolmage)

IN OTHER WORDS… Rhetoric can help us understand the issues we face in modern society by helping us navigate the discourse circulating the public sphere According to Dolmage, disability studies is “uniquely rhetorical”

THEREFORE… Rhetoric is a way of entering a conversation (in this case, a conversation surrounding disability studies). By entering the conversation, we can contribute to contemporary issues in this field of study.

THE CONFLUENCE OF DISABILITY AND IMAGINATION | EMILY MICHAEL

APPLIED RHETORIC Dolmage uses rhetoric… How could we use rhetoric in this way? as a way to enter a conversation What conversations could we enter? to understand power relations What new understandings about a social/cultural to advocate for equity, specifically as it pertains to accessibility issue might we gain by applying rhetoric?

Read: “Postsecondary Programs More Inclusive, Report Finds” QUICK-WRITE Research: In about ten minutes, find an article, video, etc. by Dolmage that, in some way, interacts with the above article. Write: Using your research, consider how Dolmage might respond to this article’s claims that college is becoming more accessible to students with disabilities?

LET’S CHAT By following Dolmage’s view of rhetoric as a study of power, how might you use rhetoric to enter the conversation circulating your research problem? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

Journal: Drawing on our closing BEFORE WE MEET AGAIN… conversation, reconsider your research question, viewing the topic as a conversation. Make a few lists, responding to the following prompts: What are some of the various talking points of your topic? Who is contributing to the conversation, and why? Who is excluded? What’s at stake?