This edition of The Forefront of Research features the Journal of Philosophy of Disability (JPD). This new journal devoted to the philosophical study of disability is edited by Joel Michael Reynolds (Georgetown University) and Teresa Blankmeyer Burke (Gallaudet University). Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Disability at Georgetown University, a Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and core faculty in Georgetown’s disability studies program. Burke is a Professor of Philosophy at Gallaudet University, Secretary/Treasurer of the Society for Analytical Feminism, and co-leader of the Disability Ethics Affinity Group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Both Burke and Reynolds are members of the board of the Society for Philosophy and Disability, which is a partner of the JPD. The answers in the following interview were composed by both Reynolds and Burke.
What is the purpose of the Journal of Philosophy of Disability? What types of research does it seek to promote?
After a steady stream of scholarship from the 1990s onward, work in the field of philosophy of disability has expanded exponentially. If one looks merely to the last three years, the field has witnessed major philosophical monographs. These include Elizabeth Barnes’ The Minority Body (Oxford University Press, 2016b), Shelley Tremain’s Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (University of Michigan Press, 2017), Jennifer Scuro’s Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies (Rowman and LIttlefield, 2017), Chris Kaposy’s Choosing Down Syndrome (MIT Press, 2018), and Eva Kittay’s Learning from My Daughter (Oxford University Press, 2019), among other titles. Recent years have also seen multiple high-profile edited volumes supported by large academic presses, including The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, edited by Adam Cureton and David Wasserman (online publication ongoing, print forthcoming), and Philosophy of Disability: New Perspectives, edited by Kelly Oliver and Melinda Hall (Duke University Press, forthcoming). This is not to mention the prominent scholarly blogs and many public-facing works that have received increasingly wide audiences.
Despite this explosion, there has never been a peer-reviewed journal devoted to scholarship in the field of philosophy of disability. Until now.
As of June 1st, the Journal of Philosophy of Disability (JPD) will begin accepting submissions. The JPD will publish peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, critical responses, commentaries, and occasional special issues. The editors welcome scholarship from all philosophical perspectives, including analytic, continental, and pragmatist traditions, the history of philosophy, empirically informed philosophy, non-Western philosophy, and other traditions and fields that substantively engage research in philosophy of disability. The JPD is published open-access by the Philosophy Documentation Center, requiring no payments from authors and under a Creative Commons license, with assistance from Georgetown University. In addition, the JPD supports and is also supported by the Society for Philosophy and Disability. You can send submissions as well as any questions about the journal to jphildisability@gmail.com. Our author line-up includes Eva Feder Kittay, Jürgen Habermas, Havi Carel, Leslie Francis, Kim Q. Hall, Adam Cureton, Andrea Pitts, Desiree Valentine, Joseph Stramondo, Kevin Timpe, David Wasserman, Melinda Hall, Chris Kaposy, Licia Carlson, and Christine Wieseler.
How is the research of this journal related to important contemporary philosophical topics/debates? What effects do you hope it will have?
Despite receiving different types of philosophical training and engaging significantly different types of literatures, philosophical and otherwise, scholars working in philosophy of disability have demonstrated over and over again that a concept, principle, debate, problematic, theme, literature, or even an entire field was (a) in fact grounded in an implicit understanding of human ability and disability and (b) would benefit from explicit reflection upon disability, including engagement not only with the field of philosophy of disability, but also with the work of disability activists and disability studies’ scholars (Reynolds 2019). The forerunners, pioneers, and first-generation knowledge-builders of philosophy of disability—including Adrienne Asch, Kim Q. Hall, Leslie Francis, Eva Kittay, Martin Milligan, Anita Silvers, S. Kay Toombs, Shelley Tremain, David Wasserman, and Susan Wendell, among others—raised consciousness about disability as a focal and generative site of philosophical inquiry by demonstrating its centrality to multiple long-established philosophical fields (Asch 1999; K. Q. Hall 2002; Francis & Silvers 2000; Kittay 1999; Magee & Milligan 1995; Silvers 1994; Toombs 1992; Tremain 1996; Wasserman; 2005; Wendell 1996). The scholarship on disability has been extremely broad in scope, ranging from work on Parfit’s non-identity problem to Kittay’s feminist dependency critique of Rawlsian social contract theory, from Feinburg’s open future argument to Tremain’s Foucauldian analysis of the apparatus of disability, from Nussbaum and Sen’s articulation of the capabilities approach to Barnes’ arguments for a mere-difference view and Hall’s arguments against transhumanism. In sum, philosophical fields engaging questions of disability are extremely diverse: social and political philosophy, phenomenology, normative and applied ethics, philosophy of law, philosophy of mind, critical philosophy of race, a wide range feminist philosophy, and, increasingly, topics and figures in continental philosophy.
Because of a lack of any dedicated scholarly outlet, scholars doing research in philosophy of disability have often been forced to place their concerns under the umbrella of other fields and their concerns, especially, but by no means solely, that of bioethics. Many of the philosophy of disability scholars referenced above have also shown how the widespread capture of disability-related issues by bioethics’ journals in particular has in fact hindered philosophical reflection on disability. This is not to say that great work hasn’t been done in those spaces—it certainly has. But the general effect has nevertheless been an artificial restriction of wide-ranging issues concerning embodiment, well-being, and difference to too often narrowly medical or healthcare related concerns. The Journal of Philosophy of Disability remedies this issue.
Will the journal publish any special themes worth highlighting?
We are excited to announce that our inaugural issue will contain a cluster of short pieces on Covid-19 and disability. We hope to regularly run a number of topical clusters as well as special issues, and we are eager to hear from people who have an idea and would like to act as guest editors. Given that disability is fundamental to human life, the special issue topics are endless. Having said that, here are a few examples (in no particular order): Disability and De-/Post-Colonialism; Disability and Philosophy of Mind; Deaf Philosophy; Disability and Deaf Studies; Disability and Immigration; Disability and Aesthetics; Intellectual Disability and Philosophy; Disability and Justice; Disability and Ableism; Disability and Racialization; Disability and Philosophy of Language; Disability and Affect; Disability and Incarceration; Disability and Social Epistemology; Disability and Dehumanization; Disability and Trans Philosophy; Disability and Metaphysics; Disability and Asian Philosophy; Disability and Enhancement; Disability and the History of Philosophy; Disability and Philosophy of Religion; Disability and Phenomenology; Disability and Aging.
Who would you recommend to read your journal regularly?
One especially exciting aspect of starting this journal is that there is a very large audience in the humanities, social sciences and sciences who focus on or at least pay attention to research concerning disability. The growth of the interdisciplinary field of disability studies, now over fifty years old, shows no signs of abating, and there is a strong appetite for careful work in philosophy on disability. So, we think that not only will a very wide range of philosophers find pieces in the JPD of interest, but also those working in a range of non-philosophy fields as well.
What directions do you hope to take the journal in the future?
One of our key goals is to expand accessibility for disabled philosophers and other readers. Initially, the JPD will produce optimally accessible PDFs and explore alternative formats, including making pre-print Word documents available as well as HTML versions of published materials. In the long term, however, we hope to explore alternative and more expansive online accessible formats. This might include, for example, adding American Sign Language videos of abstracts or entire papers, having audio-recordings of our published materials, making Braille conversion efficient and easy, producing simple-English versions of articles, and facilitating translation into other languages. We also hope to make the journal as international in scope as possible, and we are actively seeking out ways to make new connections across the globe. Lastly, although this is a philosophy journal, we understand that term in a broad manner. We are excited to receive submissions from people working in any field, so long as their work deeply engages and builds upon philosophy of disability. Such intellectual cross-fertilization, we think, can only be a boon.
What advantages are there to publishing with your journal?
We hope that publishing with the JPD means that philosophical work on disability can grow on its own terms—not terms dictated by the interest of editors or editorial boards of other journals who might ultimately see disability as an “ancillary” philosophical topic, which is to say, one whose interest is, when all is said and done, due to what disability reveals about some more “essential” philosophical issue. We further hope that the journal will act as a venue to better sustain philosophical debates concerning disability in ways that not only span traditions and specializations, but also bring them productively together. Finally, we hope that the JPD will serve as a venue for philosophers of disability to connect, working in tandem with the Society of Philosophy and Disability to promote philosophy of disability.
Why is the work of this journal valuable?
Disability is central to human life. As the slogan from disability studies goes: “disability is everywhere, once you know how to look for it.” Historically, too many philosophical canons have failed to take central aspects of human life seriously (the uphill battle to include questions of sex, gender, and sexuality into any number of domains of philosophical discourse is one obvious example of this). This journal will serve as a locus for deepening philosophical debates about disability, which is to say, a locus for deepening philosophical debates about one of the central aspects of being human.
How can people interested in your journal contact it to learn more or to submit a piece for consideration?
Please send submissions and any inquiries to: jphildisability@gmail.com.
How can people interested in the philosophy of disability as a field learn more about it?
In addition to the books and articles cited above, follow and consider joining the Society for Philosophy and Disability. Take a look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where you’ll find some great resources including pieces on “Disability and Justice,” “Critical Disability Theory,” “Feminist Perspectives on Disability,” and “Disability: Definitions, Models, Experience.” You can also check out the special issues and clusters on philosophy of disability that have come out in a number of journals across the years. For example: Ethics, Res Philosophica, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. Puncta: A Journal of Critical Phenomenology has a forthcoming special issue on disability. And, of course, follow the Journal of Philosophy of Disability on Facebook and on Twitter so you don’t miss our inaugural issue appearing in the fall of 2021.
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The purpose of The Forefront of Research is to draw attention to the work done at conferences or by journals. We seek to interview conference organizers, editors, presenters, authors, and keynotes about recent or upcoming research presented in journals or at conferences. The goal is to highlight new ideas, interpretations, and projects that can shape the field and about which it is important for researchers to know. Please contact us if you have ideas for this series.
