Disability Rhetoric is the first book to view rhetorical theory and history through the lens of disability studies. Traditionally, the body has been seen as, at best, a rhetorical distraction; at worst, those whose bodies do not conform to a narrow range of norms are disqualified from speaking. Yet, Dolmage argues that communication has always been obsessed with the meaning of the body and that bodily difference is always highly rhetorical. Following from this rewriting of rhetorical history, he outlines the development of a new theory, affirming the ideas that all communication is embodied, that the body plays a central role in all expression, and that greater attention to a range of bodies is therefore essential to a better understanding of rhetorical histories, theories, and possibilities.

Jay Timothy Dolmage's profile page

Jay Timothy Dolmage is associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo. He is the founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies.

Disability Rhetoric is well-crafted, intricately assembled, and carefully presented. Through it Dolmage establishes a long heritage of rhetorical crafters, people whose extraordinary bodies enabled the cultivation of rhetorical skill.

Rhetoric Review

The critical contribution of Disability Rhetoric is its demonstration that disability studies provides tools to radically rethink other disciplines; in its specific reimagining of the history of rhetoric, these tools from disability studies are primarily a non-normative perspective and a focus on the embodied nature of all communication practices.

Disability Studies Quarterly

“The book is well worth the effort and could become a classic in the discipline...Highly recommended.

Choice

Dolmage deepens rhetorical studies’ understanding of the ways bodies are inevitably tied up with meaning-making and how disability may extend the ways we understand embodiment, embodied rhetoric, and rhetoric itself.

Rhetoric Society Quarterly