Robert McRuer

Title — Professor of English

Office — Rome Hall, Room 769

Phone — (202) 994-0497

E-mail — rmcruer@gwu.edu

Current Research

Robert McRuer’s work focuses on queer and crip cultural studies and critical theory. He is completing a book tentatively titled “Crip Time: Essays on Disability, Sexuality, and Neoliberalism,” considering locations of disability within contemporary political economies and the roles that disabled movements and representations play in countering hegemonic forms of globalization. His first book centered on contemporary lgbt writers, particularly lgbt writers of color, and his most recent book attends to cultural sites where critical queerness and disability contest heteronormativity and compulsory able-bodiedness.

Education

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995.

Publications

Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. Cultural Front Series. New York and London: New York University Press, 2006.

The Queer Renaissance: Contemporary American Literature and the Reinvention of Lesbian and Gay Identities. New York and London: New York University Press, 1997.

Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies. Special Double Issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Guest Editor with Abby L. Wilkerson. Volume 9, Numbers 1-2. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Winner of the 2003 Best Special Issue Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ).

“Fuck the Disabled: The Prequel.” Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. Madhavi Menon. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. 294-301.

“Neoliberal Risks: Million Dollar Baby, Murderball, and Anti-National Sexual Positions.” The Problem Body: Projecting Disability on Film. Ed. Sally Chivers and Nicole Markotič. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010. 159-177.

“Disabling Sex: Notes for a Crip Theory of Sexuality.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 17.1 (2010): 107-117.

“Disability Nationalism in Crip Times.” Special Issue on Ablenationalism and the Geopolitics of Disability. Ed. Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell. Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 4.2 (2010): 163-178.

“Afterword: The Future of Critical Intersex.” Critical Intersex. Ed. Morgan Homes. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. 245-250.

 

“Shameful Sites: Locating Queerness and Disability.” Gay Shame. Ed. David M. Halperin and Valerie Traub. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 179-187.

“Taking it to the Bank: Independence and Inclusion on the World Market.” Special Issue on Disability and the Dialectic of Dependency. Ed. Michael Davidson and David Bolt. Journal of Literary Disability 1.2 (2007): 5-14.

“Queer America.” The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Ed. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 215-234.

“ We Were Never Identified: Feminism, Queer Theory, and a Disabled World.” Special Issue on Disability and History. Ed. David Serlin. Radical History Review 94 (2006): 148-154.

“Crip Eye for the Normate Guy: Queer Theory and the Disciplining of Disability Studies.” Special Cluster on “Disability Studies and the University.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 120.2 (2005): 586-592.

Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies. Special Double Issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Guest Editor with Abby L. Wilkerson. Volume 9, Numbers 1-2. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Winner of the 2003 Best Special Issue Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ).

“Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence.” Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. Ed. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Sharon L. Snyder. New York: MLA Publications, 2002. 88-99. Reprinted in The Disability Studies Reader. 2 nd ed. Ed. Lennard J. Davis. New York: Routledge, 2006. 301-308.

Forthcoming Works

Sex and Disability. Co-Editor with Anna Mollow. Forthcoming (2011), Duke University Press.

“Disability Nationalism in Crip Times.” Special Issue on The Geopolitics of Disability. Ed. Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell. Forthcoming (2010), Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies.

“Disabling Sex: Notes for a Crip Theory of Sexuality.” Forthcoming (2010), GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies.

“Fuck the Disabled: The Prequel.” Shakesqueer: Queer Theorists Read Shakespeare. Ed. Madhavi Menon. Forthcoming (2010), Duke University Press.