Science Fiction, Disability, Disability Studies: A Conversation

Introduction

In 2014, the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA)—the leading international organization for science fiction research—circulated the call for papers for its 2015 conference, entitled "The SF We Don't (Usually) See: Suppressed Histories, Liminal Voices, Emerging Media." The authors of the call rightly highlighted "racial, gendered, classed, and sexual hierarchies" as constituent factors in the development of the science fiction (SF) canon, inviting potential participants to explore the new possibilities offered when we "seek out those liminal voices that have been denied access to privileged outlets." Suggested paper topics included feminist, queer, and non-Western SF; and women, "LGBTQIA individuals," and "people of colour" were namechecked as examples of groups who have been, or might still be, marginalized as creators of SF, or in terms of representation within the genre.

Nowhere in the call for papers was there any reference to disability. As scholars who had been working at the intersection of disability studies and science fiction studies for some years by 2014—and as scholars who had presented multiple disability-focused papers at SFRA and other major SF-focused conferences—our response to this omission was both frustration and a weary sense of déjà vu. We waited a few days, in the hope that someone in SFRA's wide distribution list, or within the organization's hierarchy, would notice the omission of disability and realize it was problematic; when there was no update evident, we raised the issue ourselves. The organization's leadership acknowledged our concerns, and a later version of the conference call included "SF and ability/disability" on the list of suggested paper topics.¹

Although it is easy to say that such exclusion might be an unintentional misstep (and this is certainly the response we consistently receive when we call out omissions), it is merely one in a long history of SF scholarship not seeing disability. There are many oversights and microaggressions we have witnessed or encountered in our workplaces, at conferences, and in the field's scholarship, but writing about them in any specific detail feels unsafe and "unprofessional." We recognize that this is ableism at work. In Kathryn's experience, for example, any participation at conferences comes with her anxious requests for "special" accommodation on presentation times, which are not always respected. Although we certainly appreciate the difficulty of scheduling large, multi-track conferences, when organizers of genre conferences do not know how to effectively include disability studies and disabled presenters, it makes talking about disability in a sustained, critical way (that meaningfully intersects with feminist, queer, labour, and anti-racist conversations) that much more difficult.

For readers of the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (JLCDS), these moments are likely to be scenes in a familiar story: disability, even when it is or should be at its most visible, is either ignored or quickly passed over in favour of other talking points that may be more comfortable for the critic. Over the last three decades, cultural disability studies has transformed from an emergent area of enquiry into a vibrant and thriving interdisciplinary field. Nonetheless, it remains a field engaged in an ongoing struggle for recognition and legitimation. In this context, what David Bolt terms critical avoidance is entirely to be expected: the avoidance of disability, and disability studies, by scholars who are engaging with texts and topics where disability is of manifest significance.² We do not mean to suggest that the (undoubtedly well-intentioned) authors of conference calls or conference track organizers intentionally marginalize disability or disabled people. Nor do we suggest that that authors of CFPs and articles in SF and genre scholarship should always attempt to exhaustively list and interrogate the many types of persons or texts marginalized in SF creation and representation. Yet there are multiple ironies in the omission of disability in these contexts.

In the theme chosen for the SFRA conference, the phrase "The SF We Don't (Usually) See" is an allusion to the classic SF short story "The Women Men Don't See" (1973) by James Tiptree Jr., the pen name...