Ugly Feet, OCD, and Other Intimations of Resistance

Conditioned as a scholar to maintain prudent critical distance, disabled writer, activist, and educator Aymon Langlois wanted to enter his theory as an embodied and disabled voice with certain experiences. The first of these essays-paradigmatic of this experimental, though not altogether unprecedented form-has been appraised as "antiliterature," written work that pointedly eschews the typical conventions of a given form. He prefers to conceive of this theory-infused narrative form as nonnormative, or cripped theory; as disability scholar Victoria Ann Lewis points out, the adjective "cripped" describes a "sensibility," antithetical to "the norm." Not only is Langlois' subjectivity cripped-so too is the form itself.

From individual experience with hypotonia, body dysmorphia and borderline exercise bulimia in the context of athleticism, with blindness, the seeing/knowing synonymy and OCD in the academy, with anxiety, hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity in relationships, Langlois draws outwards to interrogate and indict systems of ableism and monolithic masculinity. Along the way, he advocates for disability liberation and pride.

Praise For Aymon E. Langlois

"Engaging with scholarship as an essayist can be risky: the academic approach can easily overintellectualize a subject, keeping it at a sterile, critical distance. But in this powerful series of linked essays, Aymon Langlois uses theory to apprehend his subject-the complex interactions between disability and masculinity-with incredible precision and force. A promising, exhilarating entry into the canon of writing that successfully weaves together memoir and critical inquiry."

- Andrew Leland, author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

"In compelling, companionable, and often lyrical prose, Langlois fashions essays that are intelligent, heartfelt, and moving. After a brief time in their company, you may never experience the world the same way again-and you will be better off for that."

- Ben Mattlin, author of Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World

"Ugly Feet, OCD, and Other Intimations of Resistance is a poetic rumination on masculinity, disability, identity and the self. Langlois blurs the line between the academic theoretical, rhetorical and the intimacy of the personal."

- Dev Ramsawakh, contributor to Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century