Chapter 9 Further Reading

Foundational Disability Studies Texts

McRuer, Robert. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York University Press, 2006. The foundational text of crip theory, drawing on queer theory to analyze how compulsory able-bodiedness structures Western culture. Essential for understanding the theoretical framework applied in this chapter. McRuer's analysis of how normal bodies are produced through cultural practice — not found — is directly relevant to fan community analysis.

Oliver, Mike. The Politics of Disablement. Macmillan, 1990. The classic articulation of the social model of disability, by one of its original theorists. Oliver's argument that disability is produced by social organization rather than biological impairment remains foundational. Accessible to readers without prior disability studies background.

Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press, 2013. Extends crip theory by bringing it into dialogue with feminist and queer theory. Kafer's analysis of "curative time" — the assumption that disabled people exist in a trajectory toward cure or normalization — is particularly relevant to the cure narrative analysis in Section 9.6.

Miserandino, Christine. "The Spoon Theory." But You Don't Look Sick (online essay), 2003. Available at: butyoudontlooksick.com. The original Spoon Theory essay, published online and widely circulated in chronic illness communities. Short, accessible, and essential context for Case Study 9.2.

Autism, Neurodiversity, and Fandom Research

Booth, Paul. Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age. University of Iowa Press, 2015. Booth's work on fan practices and digital community provides context for understanding how social connection through fandom works. While not exclusively focused on neurodivergent fans, the analysis of fan community as social form is directly relevant.

Robertson, Sarah M. "Neurodiversity, Quality of Life, and Autistic Adults: Shifting Research and Professional Focuses onto Real-Life Challenges." Disability Studies Quarterly 30, no. 1 (2010). Research on autistic adults' quality of life and social participation, with implications for understanding what accessible social environments — including fan communities — look like for autistic adults.

Singer, Judy. Neurodiversity: The Birth of an Idea. Kindle edition, 2017. Singer is generally credited with coining "neurodiversity" in the 1990s. This short work provides her account of the concept's origin and development, useful for understanding the intellectual history of a term that has become central to disability identity discourse.

Silberman, Steve. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. Avery, 2015. A comprehensive journalistic history of autism, including extensive coverage of the historical relationship between autistic people and science fiction fandom. Chapter 9 of NeuroTribes specifically examines the connection between early science fiction fan communities and autistic social participation. Highly accessible.

Fan Studies and Disability

Busse, Kristina. "I'm Jealous of the Fake Me: Postmodern Subjectivity and Identity Construction in Boy Band Fan Fiction." In Framing Celebrity, edited by Sue Holmes and Sean Redmond. Routledge, 2006. Busse's work on fan fiction and identity construction is relevant to understanding how disabled fans use fan creative work for identity exploration and emotional processing.

Stanfill, Mel. Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans. University of Iowa Press, 2019. Stanfill's analysis of fan labor and its exploitation by media industries provides context for Case Study 9.2's analysis of how chronic illness affects fan labor capacity and the political economy of spoonie fan participation.

Transformative Works and Cultures (journal, transformativeworks.org). The premier peer-reviewed journal in fan studies. Multiple articles directly relevant to disability and fandom have been published here; search the archive for "disability," "neurodiversity," "autism," and "accessibility" for current research.

Convention Accessibility and Design

Wong, Alice. Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. Vintage, 2020. A collection of first-person accounts of disability in contemporary American life. While not focused on fandom specifically, multiple essays address the experience of inaccessible cultural spaces and the politics of inclusion vs. genuine accessibility.

Disability at the Con (various convention-specific accessibility reports, fan-produced). Multiple disability advocacy groups and individual fans have produced public reports documenting specific conventions' accessibility — and lack thereof. These fan-produced accessibility analyses represent an example of fan labor with a directly political function.

Intersectionality and Disability

Clare, Eli. Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. Duke University Press, 2017. Clare's meditation on the concept of "cure" — in disability, in queer identity, in ecological destruction — is particularly relevant to Section 9.6's analysis of cure narratives in fan creative work and in mainstream media. Clare is a transgender poet and activist whose work exemplifies disability/queer intersectional analysis.

Bell, Chris, ed. Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions. Michigan State University Press, 2011. Addresses the relative absence of race from disability studies scholarship and examines the specific experience of Black disabled people. Relevant to this chapter's argument that disability must be analyzed intersectionally.

Primary Sources and Community Texts

#ActuallyAutistic (Twitter/X hashtag, 2011–present). The #ActuallyAutistic tag was developed by autistic self-advocates as a way to distinguish autistic people's first-person accounts from expert accounts about autism. The tag has produced extensive documentation of autistic social experience, including in fan communities.

Tumblr autism/neurodiversity communities (2010–present). The Tumblr neurodiversity community, which overlapped substantially with Tumblr fandom communities, produced extensive grassroots writing about autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent conditions in the context of fan community participation. This community writing is an important primary source for understanding how fans articulate and theorize their own neurodivergent experience.

AO3 Tag Data (archiveofourown.org). The AO3 archive's tag system includes extensive fan-generated tagging around disability — both real-person tags related to the fan community's discussion of disability and fiction tags including "Disability," "Autism Spectrum Disorder," "Chronic Illness," and many others. Exploring these tag systems reveals the extent of disability as a fan creative and community theme.