A Discussion with AWP and PWP Faculty on Disability and Teaching

Professor Dolmage consistently brings his disability rights activism to bear on his scholarship, service, and teaching. He is the founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and a former chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Disability Issues.

In his first book, Disability Rhetoric (Syracuse University Press, 2014; http://syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/fall-2013/disability-rhetoric.html), Dolmage examines representations of the body throughout the history of rhetorical theory, establishing a long heritage of rhetorical crafters, people whose extraordinary bodies enabled the cultivation of rhetorical skill.

Dolmage has twice won the Theresa J. Enos Award for the best essay in the journal Rhetoric Review (in 2011 for “Octalog 3: The Circulation of Discourse Through the Body” and in 2006 for “Breathe Upon us an Even Flame: Hephaestus, History and the Body of Rhetoric”).
 
Dolmage is currently at work on a book project entitled Academic Ableism, which examines the roots and branches of eugenics in North American higher education, and he also works on an ongoing basis to develop teaching materials, resources, and ideas that would make classrooms more accessible for all students (see, for his example, his 2015 article in Disability Studies Quarterly, “Universal Design: Places to Start”: http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4632).