Disability Studies

Disability Aesthetics by Tobin Siebers

Disability Aesthetics

Tobin Siebers

Rights: World
For more info, contact Michael Kehoe at mkehoe@umich.edu

Tobin Siebers's work at the intersection of disability studies and the arts and humanities has been groundbreaking. Disability Aesthetics is a companion to Siebers's last book, Disability Theory, and promises to be as well received as its predecessor.

Disability Aesthetics emphasizes the presence of disability in the tradition of aesthetic representation to shed light on the important but often disguised role that disability has played in the history of art. Siebers's broad range of topics includes "the political unconscious" as displayed in reactions to the performances of Karen Finley and the outbursts of those affected with Tourette Syndrome; the controversial Heidelberg Project in the decaying city of Detroit (is it art, or an eyesore?); disability and art vandalism (e.g., the hammering of Michelangelo's Pieta in 1972 by Laszlo Toth), where both attacker and the attacked are disabled; trauma art (the aesthetic representation of violence); and disability in literary and visual studies. Siebers's wide set of examples are illustrated by 23 color plates and 38 B&W figures.

Tobin Siebers is V. L. Parrington Collegiate Professor of Literary and Cultural Criticism at the University of Michigan, in addition to being Professor of Art and Design and the Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature. A prolific writer, Siebers has published seven books, including Disability Theory.

Spring 2010
200 pages Pages