On Rhetorical Agency and Disclosing Disability in Academic Writing

Abstract

Disability disclosures in academic scholarship raise questions about possibilities of rhetorical agency. This article engages performances of disability disclosure and recent theories of rhetorical agency to show such disclosures as the culmination of recurring processes in which past experiences are brought to bear on a present moment as people recognize opportune moments for action.

Notes

1 Thanks to Scot Barnett, Brenda Brueggemann, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, Margaret Price, and Amy Vidali for helping me develop this project. Especial thanks to Theresa Enos for her editorial guidance and to RR reviewers Jay Dolmage and Debra Hawhee for their thoughtful and valuable reviewers’ reports.

2 I mean this in two ways: both literally in a different place—at different institutions and locations in different parts of the country—but also in terms of my place in scholarly experience, ranging from graduate school to being in my fifth year as an assistant professor.

3 Importantly, Price has recently revised her discussion of “kairotic space” to include what she calls “tele/presence” in order to acknowledge exchanges that occur even when participants are not physically present with one another (Yergeau et al., “Multimodality”).

4 This essay also appears in a slightly revised form as chapter 5 in Mad at School.