Refracting the Canon: Disability Theory in the Sociology’s Foundational Period

• In Event: 40212 - Open Call: Section on History of Sociology and Social Thought Paper Session

Abstract

The classical canon of social theory has been criticized for its limited range of perspectives and authors. This paper is part of a larger project that aims to address limitations by expanding the boundaries of the social theory canon to include a more diverse array of voices and perspectives that correspond to contemporary social science scholarly concerns. Historiographical work has sought to broaden and reconstruct our understanding of classical social theory by recovering authors and perspectives that have traditionally been excluded – especially around issues of race, gender, and coloniality. The present study follows in that direction by reconsidering the issue of disability. The canon of classical social theory as it is typically taught and discussed routinely ignores this topic, although some canonical authors have informed later social-theoretical approaches to disability. The present paper gathers together work by authors outside this canon writing in the same nineteenth- and early-twentieth century period that explicitly center the theorizing of disability from a primarily social, rather than pathological, perspective. I show how the leads from revisionist historiographical scholarship can help us recover the unique insights of these authors and can enrich the body of classical social theory.

Author

• Daniel R Huebner, University of North Carolina-Greensboro