Category: Disability studies

Reading Club Discussion Guide for ‘There Plant Eyes’

February is Low Vision Awareness Month, and I’m honored that There Plant Eyes was chosen as one of 3 Reading Club books by the NNLM (Network of the National Library of Medicine). Here’s the announcement, and here’s TPE featured plus other vision resources. Below is the discussion guide I created for them. I hope it will be useful for other… Read more

Footnote on ‘Year of the Tiger’ by Alice Wong

Year of the tiger: An Activist’s Life (Vintage, 2022) by Alice Wong (editor of Disability Visibility) is funny and angry and silly and deadly sobering and so much more. It’s a collection of essays, interviews, and images on subjects ranging from accessible and inviting coffee experiences to the Chinese Lunar New Year, from media representations of disabled people to the… Read more

‘Ulysses’ and Joyce’s Blind Community * Excerpt from an Article by Dr. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley

“Ulysses at 100: Why Joyce was so Obsessed with the Perfect Blue Cover” is a delightful article at The Conversation by Dr Cleo Hanaway-Oakley. It’s not only a fun deep dive into the famous blue cover, but it’s also about Joyce’s interest in blindness and the blind community. It is in this context that There Plant Eyes is referenced!: Blindness… Read more

TPE Book Celebration and Conversation with Steve Kuusisto and Elizabeth Bearden at NYU (In-Person & Online)

Co-sponsored by the Modern and Contemporary Colloquium and the Center for Disability Studies at NYU There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness (Pantheon, 2021) is now out in paperback! To mark the occasion, author M. Leona Godin (NYU) will be joined by Stephen Kuusisto (Syracuse University) and Elisabeth Bearden (University of Wisconsin, Madison) to read from their… Read more

Blindness and Insight from ‘King Lear’ to ‘Jane Eyre’ – First Day of Class!

For the first time, I’m designing my own course for NYU: “Blindness and Insight from King Lear to Jane Eyre”! Those who’ve read There Plant Eyes may guess some of the subject matter, but I’ll go a little more deep theory in the classroom. This link is to the current course offerings, in the English dept, but you have to… Read more

Footnote on ‘So Lucky’ by Nicola Griffith

I first read So Lucky (2018) by Nicola Griffith not long after it was published. I remembered loving it and laughing out loud several times. Somehow the darkness and creepiness had slipped my mind. Upon rereading it for this Footnote in honor of Disability Pride Month, I experienced all the feels, as the kids say! Griffith is a fantastic writer… Read more