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Stephen Kuusisto
Director, The Renee Crown University Honors Program, University Professor, Syracuse University
Recent Activity
Consider the Able Bodied
Here comes a man who's unaware he's a hominid. We may forgive him as he's wearing a New York Yankees tee shirt. The shirt says he likes the bodies of others, envies them, and accordingly he scarcely thinks of his... Continue reading
Posted yesterday at Planet of the Blind
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Talk to Me, Just Talk
Today I will be speaking to people with disabilities here in Uzbekistan at an event sponsored by the US Embassy. I've been thinking about one of the global dynamics of disability--the averted eye and whispering associated with physical difference. In... Continue reading
Posted 2 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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Hello! What Are You Doing Here?
I like this paragraph from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: It is in the social construction of disability that we move from the particularity of any one disability toward the common social experiences of people with disabilities. Stigma, discrimination, and... Continue reading
Posted 2 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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Talking and Walking the Silk Road
Posted 2 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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Silk Road, White Cane
Traveling blind involves a terrifying sense of immanence: even a casual walk through an unfamiliar airport can produce, at least in me, a small vertigo. In the Istanbul airport I found my white cane, that universal emblem of blindness, produced... Continue reading
Posted 3 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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What We Owe
What We Owe By Andrea Scarpino My mother told me this story when I called her on Mother’s Day: she slid open the backyard’s glass door, and the cat ran inside with a cardinal in her mouth. She cornered the... Continue reading
Posted 4 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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Disability in Neo-Liberal America
An article in today's New York Post, that deleterious rag, offers the provoking headline: "Rich Manhattan Moms Hire Handicapped Tour Guides so Kids Can Cut Lines at Disney World". Gotcha! By God! What a scandal! Something's rotten in the Magic... Continue reading
Posted 7 days ago at Planet of the Blind
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Travels in Tashkent
I am traveling to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with writers Chinelo Okparanta, Christopher Merrill, and Ann Hood and Kelly Bedeian of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Because of the long flights involved I’m leaving my beloved guide dog at... Continue reading
Posted May 13, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Family Romance
One day he saw he’d grown old in the service of stories. Salt on bread, dusk and heavy furniture--he sat alone for a long time. A geranium caught the last light at a window. Stories, reeling time backwards, the charity... Continue reading
Posted May 11, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Scapegoating Mental Illness
Say what you like, physical and intellectual differences still trouble the public nerve in America. The best evidence comes not from news reports (though they are bad enough) but by way of our entertainment media. From television's "Law and Order"... Continue reading
Posted May 11, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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My Comments to the 2013 Graduating Class of Syracuse University's Honors Program
Good afternoon. I presume I'm the first person to address you as honors graduates. Because I'm almost certainly the first I think I'm allowed to let you in on a couple of secrets, for after all, what's the use of... Continue reading
Posted May 10, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Day One with a New Guide Dog
Day one with a new guide dog is a milkweed moment: you’re swelling as if you might burst. In turn everything is softer and the world is open. My first solo walk with Corky was a festival of sorts--the trainer... Continue reading
Posted May 10, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Shame on Lincoln Center, Stereotyping the Blind
Back on March 3 I posted the entry below about Lera Auerbach's opera "The Blind" which will be performed in July as part of Lincoln Center's Summer Festival. I'm reposting what I wrote because its worth troubling the public nerve... Continue reading
Posted May 10, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Win for Disabled Students
May 9, 2013 - 3:00am By Ry Rivard College students with disabilities across the United States are likely to benefit from a settlement signed this week by the University of California at Berkeley. The university will do more to make... Continue reading
Posted May 9, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Abercrombie's Narrative Prosthesis: Deadness, Dude
There's an article over at Jezebel about Rian Dean, a woman employee of Abercrombie who was banished to the stockroom because her prosthetic arm didn't fit the "look" the company wants. Before I say more about Rian's story, I want... Continue reading
Posted May 9, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Disability as Practice, Say What You Will
Theorizing disability is like entertaining the court of Queen Victoria. Doctor Galvani applies electricity to body bits he's collected from a charnel house and dismembered hands jump. The Earls and Dukes squirm in their seats. Afterwards no one knows what... Continue reading
Posted May 8, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Poetry, I Too Distend It
Denis Diderot, the first intellectual advocate for the blind observed: “all abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs”. By “study” he meant something more than dull, acquisitive method. Paul Feyerabend, the philosopher of science put it... Continue reading
Posted May 7, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Whose Closet Are You In?
A legendary guide dog trainer once told me about finding a blind man who’d hidden himself in a closet on a Sunday afternoon. Guide dog schools are residential places with dormitories and shared meals. Blind people work with dogs and... Continue reading
Reblogged May 6, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Here's to the horses eating spring grass. A...
Posted May 6, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Whose Closet Are You In?
A legendary guide dog trainer once told me about finding a blind man who’d hidden himself in a closet on a Sunday afternoon. Guide dog schools are residential places with dormitories and shared meals. Blind people work with dogs and... Continue reading
Posted May 5, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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In Praise of Big Pictures
Speaking of biographers and the writing of biographies Jacques Derrida once said: “We should not neglect the fact that some biographies written by people who have authority in the academy finally invest this authority in a book which—for centuries sometimes—after... Continue reading
Posted May 3, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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The Dog Who Loves You
The dog who loves you turns up in your dreams. Last night she was a woman on a train who said her name was “Evensong” (I kid you not) and she was old and dignified. The dog who loves you... Continue reading
Posted May 3, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Spring Cleaning in the Cave of Making
I've spent the day puzzling over the intersections of reason and mysticism in my life--perhaps the exercise is like spring cleaning. I'm straightening up the Cave of Making. Nowadays I’ve more affection for intersections of contrarian and comic ironies than... Continue reading
Posted May 2, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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Dreaming of Deliberate Reason
Posted May 2, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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National Federation of the Blind Comments on Amazon Kindle App
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Chris Danielsen Director of Public Relations National Federation of the Blind (410) 659-9314, extension 2330 (410) 262-1281 (Cell) Cdanielsen@nfb.org Baltimore, Maryland (May 1, 2013): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the nation’s leading advocate for... Continue reading
Posted May 1, 2013 at Planet of the Blind
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