Benjamin Reiss | Emory University (original) (raw)

Books by Benjamin Reiss

This is a collection of 62 essays by a group of leading interdisciplinary scholars that defines a... more This is a collection of 62 essays by a group of leading interdisciplinary scholars that defines and analyzes the conceptual architecture of the field of disability studies. Each essay focuses on a critical concept, including Access, Medicalization, Reproduction, Stigma, Performance, and Ethics -- presenting the key debates and fresh considerations of each concept.

Papers by Benjamin Reiss

American Literature, Dec 2020

Colleges and universities that can withstand the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis will need to redo... more Colleges and universities that can withstand the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis will need to redouble their efforts to engage students in the kinds of intellectual and social experiences that cannot be attained remotely or in isolation. Public humanities, which promotes collaboration , civic and community engagement, and inter-institutional alliances, can be one such reparative force for the reconstructed university. This essay describes the work of graduate student researchers in an interdisciplinary public humanities seminar at Emory University who partnered with a large regional theater on a project involving dramaturgy and audience engagement for a spring 2020 production of Lynn Nottage's play Sweat (first performed in 2015). The graduate seminar and the project-both before and in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak-offer a compelling model for critical humanistic pedagogy and research that counteracts the isolation and insularity exacerbated by the pandemic. The four men, uneasy in their bodies, await the next moment in a fractured togetherness.-Concluding stage direction of Lynn Nottage, Sweat (2018) We picked a hell of a time to tr y to break the humanities out of their quarantine. In Spring 2020, Emory University piloted an interdisciplinary graduate seminar in public humanities. At the center of this course were four collaborative research projects that teams of humanities graduate students conducted with partner organizations throughout Atlanta. The goal of each project was to activate humanistic research skills, habits of mind, theoretical paradigms, and bodies of knowledge in untraditional contexts and situations, such as a large regional theater or a local nonprofit devoted to community

This essay considers areas in which the study of sleep and sleep disorders might profit from the ... more This essay considers areas in which the study of sleep and sleep disorders might profit from the perspective of disability studies, as practiced in the humanities and social sciences. This interdisciplinary perspective considers the social and cultural dimensions of bodily and mental states and conditions that a particular society deems “abnormal” or impaired, as well as the lived consequences of those determinations. Some sleep disorders are considered disabilities, but almost all disabilities entail some disruption from “normal” sleeping patterns—whether because of physical pain, exhaustion, and emotional stress of facing obstacles in work and other areas of waking life, or challenging sleeping environments in which many disabled people live. Despite these disruptions, finding adequate nighttime care is often difficult for people with disabilities, and consequently, night is often when social isolation and vulnerability are most profound. In addition, caretakers themselves often find their own sleep profoundly disrupted, whether this occurs in a family setting or an institutional space. Finally, the essay suggests that a disability studies perspective can help us to see that disordered sleep—whether primary or secondary to a disabling condition—can both impact and be shaped by social relationships.

Los Angeles Review of Books, Feb 15, 2014