“Impairment phenomenology is different from other kinds of phenomenology in that it does not assume a subject in command of their own faculties.” Scholar Jonathan Sterne has written a forthcoming book, Diminished Faculties: A Political Phenomenology of Impairment; the introduction is now available (PDF, 54 pages, 2.5MB). The introduction briefly explains what phenomenology is, and discusses disability simulations, Sterne’s own experience of thyroid cancer and an acquired impairment in his voice, the “humanities ‘we'”, policy implications, the interior voice, and more. It also includes excerpts from Sterne’s blog posts about his disability, and a cute illustration called “Things That Are 7.5 Centimeters”.
From the piece:
Against every critical impulse in my body, my own voice was tied up in my own self- conception, even though I had repeatedly critiqued the idea in my prior writing. As my voice changed, so did my relationship to it. Please resist the impulse to read this as a tragic story of loss of an ability, or a tale of overcoming. Of course there was fear in going into surgery, in not being able to breathe, and in the prospect of never speaking again. But this is really a story about how to exist in a changed body and how to negotiate that change. It is not meant to be offered as a lament or a form of mourning. I experienced a change in orientation, and phenomenology is all about orientation…..
Consider the table: phenomenologists talk a lot about tables. They contemplate them, sit at them, maybe read or write at them. My phenomenology starts on a table too, except I’m the object on the table being contemplated by everyone and everything else in the room……
In my impairment phenomenology, the experiment does not involve taking on a condition temporarily (though impairments can be temporary); it involves the incorporation of impairment into the self, which is the opposite of what happens when someone puts on a blindfold they can take off. One of the ironic results of disability simulations is that they produce too much stability in accounts of experience — “this is how it really works” — because they have not spent enough time to acquire the variety of experiences that come from living with an impairment or disability….
….I had originally wanted Diminished Faculties to simply end with a cat vomiting on me as I passed out, which is how chapter 5 concludes. However, readers of the manuscript unanimously wanted a conclusion.