This book fills an existing gap in the history of the foundations and early developments of disability studies through analyzing the life and work of Steven J. Taylor, founder and chair of the first formal Disability Studies Program at Syracuse University, but who had already been teaching disability studies since the early 1980s “before it had a name”. Organized around the key themes of Deconstructing/Rethinking Disability; Incarceration and Deinstitutionalization; Disability Policy; and Disability Studies, each section has contributions from leading US-based and international scholars. The authors represent a range of disciplines in disability studies and related fields, reflecting on their work in the context of, and in relation to the scholarship of Steve Taylor, discussing the relevance of his work for their own scholarship as well as the field of disability research in general. An important contribution to the field of disability studies, it grounds the vibrant and rapidly developing field of disability studies in its historical context, exploring the social and cultural environment which led to the establishment of this robust interdisciplinary field while also detailing how these early conceptualizations have set the stage for more critical theorizations of disability in sociology, education, social policy and other fields.
