In this guide you'll find the resources that will be of the most immediate help as you begin your research in Disability Studies. Here you'll find both essential materials covering the breadth of DST, as well as a curated collection of journals that will provide access to scholarly articles rooted in lived experience and the disability studies perspective. Browse the selections that follow for sources that will help you explore possible topics, develop your ideas, and become familiar with core concepts.
Critical Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that approaches disability as a social and cultural category, a lived experience, and an analytical frame. It thus expands understandings of disability and people with disabilities across diverse geographical and temporal contexts. According to the Encyclopedia of American Disability History, "disability is not a characteristic that exists in the person so defined, but a construct that finds its meaning in a social and cultural context.” Critical Disability Studies explores issues of identity, representation, access, citizenship, technology, knowledge, and power—among other topics—and understands disability as inextricably tied to other social forces and identities, including gender, sexuality, class, and race.
Try some of these library subject headings to browse print and electronic books at the library. These links will take you to MIDCAT, the library catalog.
Browse the Shelves
Many books related to disability studies are located in the call number HV section of the library, on the Upper Level.
Rhetorical constructions in disability studies
If you're looking for specific readings or theorizations of a topic, try combining your keyword with frequently paired terms like:
Notes & Bibliography System
Use this system if you want to use footnotes. More common in arts & humanities fields.
Author/Date System
Use this system if you are mostly using in-text, parenthetical citations (not footnotes). More common in sciences and social sciences.
Not Sure Which System?
Ask your professor.
More Help
Library Citation Guide