Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

Starting with a brilliant interrogation of the sociolegal inflections of ableism in authorship definitions and practices, this collection illustrates an imaginative expansion of critical disability studies--crip theory--and writing, theory, praxis, and representation. If someone is under legal conservatorship, for example, they cannot independently sign a publication contract. State-based limitations on disability income may preclude accepting royalties. These introductory moments alone illustrate the strengths of disability as a method of interrogating texts and social relations. Sections cover writing, research, genre/form, publishing, and media, and examine caregiving; research ethics; madness; international/colonial disability relations; autotheory; indigeneity, Blackness, and disability; accessible media options; and many works (34 in all) from different fields and in different registers. While centered on experiential narratives, this deeply reflective and theoretical collection engages the contradictions within disability studies. For example, a demand for "plain" or "accessible" language can improve accessibility, but it can also be reductive and force people into standardizations that erase living languages and flatten complexity. This is an excellent volume for disability studies programs and disability resource office coordinators: theory, practice, insights, and achievements abound in this book.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

In Kids across the Spectrums, Alper (communication studies, Northeastern Univ.) sets out to discover the interactions between autistic youth and technology. The book is broken into sections on belonging, relationships, and embodiment, with chapters that consider identity, learning, family, friendship, senses, and emotions. Kids across the Spectrums successfully advances Alper's thesis because the author combines prior research with information gleaned from interviews with both caregivers and autistic children themselves. These interviews with parents and children, quoted in the book, are insightful. It is also notable that this book centers children of different cultures, genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, a welcome divergence from research that has historically focused only on children who are assumed to be white, middle-class, and male. The author's focus on the intersectionality and diversity of her subjects gives readers a better understanding of how race, gender, and class (among other factors) interact with both technology and disability. Alper also makes sure to address areas in autism studies that have very little existing research. She successfully pushes back against child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim's view of the autistic child as a "mechanical boy" (p. 1).Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.