Reading Group – Disidentification with/in Disability Studies

Join us for our first reading group session, where we will discuss Sami Schalk, “Coming to Claim Crip: Disidentification with/in Disability Studies” (2013), published in Disability Studies Quarterly.
Open access: https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v33i2.3705

In this partly personal and partly theoretical article, Sami Schalk explores how a nondisabled scholar might cultivate an ethical and politically engaged relationship to disability studies and disability activism. Drawing on José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of disidentification, Schalk argues that scholars and activists can engage with identities and theories not originally designed for them in ways that build coalition and solidarity. Schalk connects this framework to her own experiences as a fat, Black, queer woman and critiques the persistence of whiteness within disability studies. Through this discussion, she highlights shared struggles against normative expectations placed on bodies and identities.

For historians working on the premodern world, this piece raises compelling questions about positionality and interpretation. Could disidentification help explain how people in Byzantine society with other stigmatized identities (for example, related to ethnicity, profession, gender, or sexuality) might have engaged with or understood the experiences of people with impairments? And how might this framework shape the way we, as scholars, approach disability in historical contexts?

We warmly invite anyone interested in disability history, Byzantine studies, and critical theory to join this informal discussion. All are welcome and no prior background in disability studies is required.

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