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Unruly Rhetorics: Disability, Animality, and New Kinship Compositions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Shannon Walters
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Extract

“I was sure it would make a great story, first for telling and then for writing down,” writes harriet MCbryde Johnson, explaining why she accepts an invitation from Peter Singer to a debate at Princeton University (2003). Initially, Johnson, a disability-rights activist and lawyer who has a neuromuscular disease, is unsure how to interact with Singer, whose philosophy of preferential utilitarianism argues that it is ethical to kill babies born with severe disabilities. Johnson first encounters Singer at an event at the College of Charleston, and she looks to the rules of decorum to help her decide how to handle the situation. When she sees Singer talking to friends, she considers leaving before even being introduced to him. “Hereabouts,” however, “the rule is that if you're not prepared to shoot on sight, you have to be prepared to shake hands. I give Singer the three fingers on my right hand that still work. ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Singer. I'm here for Not Dead Yet.‘ I want to think he flinches just a little” (204 [2005]).

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Information
PMLA , Volume 129 , Issue 3 , May 2014 , pp. 471 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2014

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