Rod Michalko

Bio: Rod Michalko is an academic researcher from University of Toronto. The author has contributed to research in topics: Imitation & Autism. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 12 publications receiving 514 citations. Previous affiliations of Rod Michalko include St. Francis Xavier University.

The Difference That Disability Makes

Abstract: Contents Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Home Is Where the Heart Is 3. The Social Location of Suffering 4. Coming Face-to-Face with Suffering 5. The Birth of Disability 6. Image and Imitation Notes References Index

The Two-in-One: Walking with Smokie, Walking with Blindness

Abstract: Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Search for a Guide 3. Is That One of Those Blind Dogs? 4. The Grace of Teaching 5. The Power of Reputation 6. Feel Free to Ask 7. The Two-in-One Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

The mystery of the eye and the shadow of blindness

Abstract: Blindness is commonly considered to be a physical condition with negative consequences for its sufferers. Most research and treatment begin with the assumption that blind persons require adjustment and training to cope with their distorted view of reality. For Rod Michalko, blindness offers a legitimate way of being and a teaching tool - one that presents a unique perspective on aspects of the world that the sighted never experience and that the disciplines of ophthalmology and rehabilitation never consider. This book explores matters of choice and personal fulfilment in the context of blindness. Ophthalmology and rehabilitation use sheer necessity as their guiding principle, but the blind person must grapple with the question of what kind of blind person he or she chooses to be. The story of blindness is retold in the life of every blind person and whenever blindness is thought about, spoken of, or acted upon. Michalko immerses himself in this multiplicity of narration, weaving his own experience of blindness through it, using it as an occasion to think about life, our decisions, our choices, including how we choose to understand each other, and the ways we choose to live collectively in the human community. He wants you to consider what can be produced by thinking of blindness as an essential part of being. This is an important book for anyone who has personal or professional contact with any community of disabled persons, particularly the blind, as well as anyone who simply wants to better understand what it means to be human.

The Body as the Problem of Individuality: A Phenomenological Disability Studies Approach

Abstract: Disability, as Paul Abberley (1998: 93) reminds us, is interesting often only as a problem. Or as Bill Hughes (2007: 673) puts it, ‘almost by definition, [we] assume disability to be ontologically problematic, and many disabled people feel that many of the people with whom they interact in everyday situations treat them as if they are invisible, repulsive or “not all there”’. What interests us from a phenomenological perspective is that the contemporary scene of disability framed as ‘problem’ typically generates the requirement for explanation and amelioration, but little else. Thus, this chapter examines the hegemonic taken-for-granted character of the disability-as-a-problem frame.

Minds Between Us: Autism, mindblindness and the uncertainty of communication

Abstract: This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism. We make use of the developmental psychology concepts of ‘Theory of Mind’ and ‘mindblindness’ to uncover the meaning of autism as expressed in these concepts. Our concern is that autism is depicted as a puzzle and that this depiction governs not only the way Western culture treats autism but also the way in which it governs everyday interactions with autistic people. Moreover, we show how the concepts of Theory of Mind and mindblindness require autism to be a puzzle in the first place. Rather than treat autism as a puzzle that must be solved, we treat autism as a teacher and thus as having something valuable to contribute toward an understanding of the inherent partiality and uncertainty of human communication and collective life.

The archaeology of knowledge

Abstract: We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Abstract: Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Dis/entangling critical disability studies

Abstract: Recently there has been discussion about the emergence of critical disability studies. In this paper I provide an inevitably partial and selective account of this trans-disciplinary space through reference to a number of emerging insights, including theorizing through materialism, bodies that matter, inter/trans-sectionality, global disability studies, and self and Other. I briefly disentangle these themes and suggest that while we may well start with disability, we often never end with it as we engage with other transformative arenas including feminist, critical race and queer theories. Yet critical disability studies reminds us of the centrality of disability when we consider the politics of life itself. In this sense, then, disability becomes entangled with other forms of oppression and revolutionary responses.

What's So "Critical" about Critical Disability Studies?

Abstract: This article self-reflexively turns the focus on disability studies to consider why critical disability studies (CDS) is emerging as the preferred nomenclature and whether this constitutes a radica...

Toward a psychology of human–animal relations.

Abstract: Nonhuman animals are ubiquitous to human life, and permeate a diversity of social contexts by providing humans with food and clothing, serving as participants in research, improving healing, and offering entertainment, leisure, and companionship. Despite the impact that animals have on human lives and vice versa, the field of psychology has barely touched upon the topic of human–animal relations as an important domain of human activity. We review the current state of research on human–animal relations, showing how this body of work has implications for a diverse range of psychological themes including evolutionary processes, development, normative factors, gender and individual differences, health and therapy, and intergroup relations. Our aim is to highlight human–animal relations as a domain of human life that merits theoretical and empirical attention from psychology as a discipline.