Bibliographic Reference
Sightlines, California College of the Arts Thesis Publication, June, 2012
In his study Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (1990), French philosopher Gilles Deleuze famously grappled with the question “What Can a Body Do?” In this essay I revisit Deleuze’s question in my own terms by asking “what can a disabled body do?” More to the point, what does it mean to inscribe a contemporary work of art with experiences of disability? What shapes or forms can that inscription take? How, precisely, can perceptions of the disabled body be liberated frombinary classifications such as “normal” and “pathological”? What alternative frameworks can be employed by scholars, curators, and artists in order to determine a new fate for the often stigmatized disabled identity?