Recently, there has been an avalanche of news articles about spikes in mental illness on campus. Seminal works like Margaret Price\’s Mad at School (2011) have begun to expose the ableism inherent in the university and prompted more open discussion surrounding the politics of disclosure.
As interest in this crucial topic grows, we are seeking out academics with psychiatric disorders and disabilities to contribute chapters to an essay collection on Mad Scholars, showcasing personal perspectives and professional experiences from across disciplines and career stages.
While these essays explore academia’s ableism and strategies of resilience, the focus of the collection will be on how our identities have informed our research and pedagogy, including how this intersects with other identities. In particular, we are seeking out essays on what it is like to work in areas that often deal explicitly with ableist assumptions (medicine, law, history) while also being mentally ill.
We are seeking out writers interested in the following topics:
1. How does our mad identity interact with our (current or former) research and/or pedagogy? Potential explorations include:
How your mad identity informs your pedagogy
How your mad identity informs your research
How your disorder or disability renders you both object and subject of study
How your mad perspective could/does contribute to your discipline
2. How do our mad identities create communities that contribute to a broader “mad imaginary”? Potential explorations include:
How you have navigated the benefits and pitfalls of disclosure
How you have crafted mad resilience/mad pedagogy
How your narrative helps unlearn \”deficit logic\” often ascribed to mad scholars
How your bodymind is seen within and without the university
Please submit 300-350 word abstracts of your proposed chapter (ultimately be 4,000-6,000 words) and your CV or resume to madscholarsanthology@gmail.com by August 30th. Questions sent to this email address are also welcome.
With gratitude,
Shayda Kafai, Ph.D. (Lecturer at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona) Melanie Jones, M.A. (Ph.D. Candidate at University of California, Los Angeles)
