Congratulations Simi Linton, author of "My Body Politic"

As mentioned previously on this blog, Simi Linton has a blog called Disability Culture Watch, which she categorizes as "A disability-focused commentary on the arts".  Here is an excerpt from her "About" page:

"There is an emerging cadre of dancers, actors, writers, performance artists, and painters who are actively engaging with both the fact and idea of disability. The most exciting work explores what disability provides the artist, rather than what feats someone can perform despite disability. When disabled artists use their unique bodies and voices, something innovative happens.  My job is to follow these turns and twists on the cultural map, selectively reporting and critiquing this vital phenomena."

Simi is the author of My Body Politic (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and recently she has been awarded grants, one from the Puffin Foundation and one from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to develop a stage adaptation for the book.  Congratulations, Simi!  We can't wait!

With permission from Simi, the summary of her book, as found on her web site, is copied below for our review.  Follow this link to learn more, as well as to hear two selections from the book, read by the author herself. 

As mentioned previously on this blog, Simi Linton has a blog called Disability Culture Watch, which she categorizes as "A disability-focused commentary on the arts".  Here is an excerpt from her "About" page:

"There is an emerging cadre of dancers, actors, writers, performance artists, and painters who are actively engaging with both the fact and idea of disability. The most exciting work explores what disability provides the artist, rather than what feats someone can perform despite disability. When disabled artists use their unique bodies and voices, something innovative happens.  My job is to follow these turns and twists on the cultural map, selectively reporting and critiquing this vital phenomena."

Simi is the author of My Body Politic (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and recently she has been awarded grants, one from the Puffin Foundation and one from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to develop a stage adaptation for the book.  Congratulations, Simi!  We can't wait!

With permission from Simi, the summary of her book, as found on her web site, is copied below for our review.  Follow this link to learn more, as well as to hear two selections from the book, read by the author herself. 

About the book

Simi Linton’s story begins in the midst of the turmoil over Vietnam and concludes with a meditation on the war in Iraq, and our wounded veterans. Her story is as much a cultural as a political one, and so she reveals close encounters with Jimi Hendrix, Salvador Dali and James Brown, and then, as she becomes immersed in disability culture, introduces us to an exciting cast of disabled actors, writer, painters and dancers who inhabit her world.

My Body Politic weaves a tale that shows disability to be an ordinary part of the twists and turns of life, and simultaneously, a unique vantage point on the world. Hitchhiking from Boston to Washington, DC in 1971 to protest the war in Vietnam, Simi Linton was injured in a car accident that paralyzed her legs and took the lives of her young husband and her best friend.

My Body Politic opens with her struggle to resume a life in the world. She then takes us along on the road she traveled – with stops in Berkeley, Paris, Havana, and back to her home in Manhattan – as she learns what it means to be a disabled person in America. Along the way she completed a PhD, remarried, and became deeply committed to the disability rights movement.

The book is populated with richly drawn portraits of Linton’s disabled comrades, people of conviction and lusty exuberance who dance, play – and organize – with passion and commitment.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv

About the book

Simi Linton’s story begins in the midst of the turmoil over Vietnam and concludes with a meditation on the war in Iraq, and our wounded veterans. Her story is as much a cultural as a political one, and so she reveals close encounters with Jimi Hendrix, Salvador Dali and James Brown, and then, as she becomes immersed in disability culture, introduces us to an exciting cast of disabled actors, writer, painters and dancers who inhabit her world.

My Body Politic weaves a tale that shows disability to be an ordinary part of the twists and turns of life, and simultaneously, a unique vantage point on the world. Hitchhiking from Boston to Washington, DC in 1971 to protest the war in Vietnam, Simi Linton was injured in a car accident that paralyzed her legs and took the lives of her young husband and her best friend.

My Body Politic opens with her struggle to resume a life in the world. She then takes us along on the road she traveled – with stops in Berkeley, Paris, Havana, and back to her home in Manhattan – as she learns what it means to be a disabled person in America. Along the way she completed a PhD, remarried, and became deeply committed to the disability rights movement.

The book is populated with richly drawn portraits of Linton’s disabled comrades, people of conviction and lusty exuberance who dance, play – and organize – with passion and commitment.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv