The constitutive relationship between race and disability in African American literature: a Black critical disabilities studies approach
In this project, I examine what disability scholars such as Ellen Samuels, Nirmala Erevelles, and Cynthia Wu label as the “constitutive relationship” between race and disability, meaning that race informs disability in the same way that disability informs race. The relationship between the two categories of difference is interconnected, yet seldom does black literary studies engage a disability studies praxis and rarely does disability studies engage with African American literature. I formulate a theory of reading race and disability as it pertains to the fiction, authors, and the larger African American and disability communities and strive to reconcile the overlooked, yet imperative, relationship between the two categories of difference. By using a Black Critical Disabilities Studies Approach, as I label it, my project breaks down the ways in which African American authors and scholars use disability as a metaphor for race, usually carrying a negative connotation. Not only do I engage the rhetorical strategies of disability in African American literature and scholarship, but I also employ a historical materialist lens to explore how, through the brutal system of slavery, the black body becomes the epitome of the disabled figure. Finally, I argue that using a Black Critical Disabilities Studies Approach allows for nuanced ways of reading African American literary texts, especially in terms of African American identity.
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