Current Faculty
Richard Cross is the Rev. John A. O’Brien Chair of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department. He has recently published on disability, impairment and medieval accounts of the incarnation.
John Duffy is currently working on a history of the contending discourses of autism, the tropes, metaphors, and other rhetorical resources that offered autistic persons, in Kenneth Burkeís phrase, ìsheer identities of the symbolic,î or ways of understanding themselves and their places in the world.
Essaka Joshua has a book-length study of disability in British literature of the Romantic period under review, and is currently editing a special issue of Journal of Narrative Theory.
Encarnación Juárez-Almendros has published widely on disability issues and is currently working on book entitled Women and Disability in Early Modern Spain. Professor Juárez-Almendros sits on the Disability Studies Executive Committee for the MLA.
Thomas Merluzzi studies coping processes in people with cancer. His work in this area includes the study of measures of self-efficacy for coping with cancer; religious/spiritual coping; and the impact of brief counseling on adjustment to cancer; midlife transitions in health; and the importance of cultural competency in health professionals.
Yvonne Mikuljan studies impairment and disability in Anglo Saxon England.
Selected Publications
- “Baptism and Severe Cognitive Impairment in Some Medieval Theologies.” International Journal of Systematic Theology, 14 (2012): 420-38
- “Disability, Impairment, and Some Medieval Accounts of the Incarnation: Suggestions for a Theology of Personhood.” Modern Theology 27.4 (2011): 639-658.
- “Introduction" and guest editor, Disability Studies Quarterly: Disability and Rhetoric Special Issue, Co-authored with Melanie Yergeau, 31.3 (2011)
- “The Pathos of “Mindblindness”: Autism, Science, and Sadness in “Theory of Mind” Narratives." Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 5.2 (2011):201-215
- “The Drifting Language of Architectural Accessibility in Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris.” Disability Studies Quarterly 31:3 (2011): 1–16
- Winner of the Society for Disability Studies 2011 Tyler Rigg Award for Disability Studies Scholarship in Literature and Literary Analysis
- “‘Blind Vacancy’: Sighted Culture and Voyeuristic Historiography in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” European Romantic Review 22.1 (2011): 49-69
- “‘I began to see’: Biblical Models of Disability in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre” in The Madwoman and Blindman: Jane Eyre, Discourse, Disability. Ed. David Bolt, Julia Miele Rodas and Elizabeth J. Donaldson, with a foreword by Lennard J. Davis. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2012. 111–128.
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“Introduction.” co-authored with Michael Bradshaw. In Disabling Romanticism: Body, Mind, and Text. Ed. Michael Bradshaw. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 1-17
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“Picturesque Aesthetics: Theorising Deformity in the Romantic Era.” In Disabling Romanticism: Body, Mind, and Text. Ed. Michael Bradshaw. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 29-48
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“Introduction" and guest editor, Journal of Narrative Theory. Special Issue: Dis/Enabling Narratives 47.3 (2017) 305-316
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“Disability and Deformity: Function Impairment and Aesthetics in the Long Eighteenth Century.” In The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability. Ed. Clare Barker and Stuart Murray. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018. 47-61
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Contributing Editor, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Volume 4: The Age of Romanticism. Introduction and Edition: Disability Contexts Section. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview: 2018
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Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: Prostitutes, Aging Women and Saints. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018.