Intertheory: Disability, Accommodation, and the Writing of Composition

Abstract

Combining approaches from composition studies, legal studies, and disability studies, this project theorizes a new model of accommodation in composition (and beyond): "complex accommodation." Complex accommodation frames disability as critical kairos; in other words, I argue that the encounter of disability and attendant necessity for accommodation creates a moment of practical and theoretical dissonance in composition that may reveal under-critiqued norms in individual classrooms, writing programs, and the field as a whole. This project provides the theoretical grounding and articulation of complex accommodation while also creating practical accommodational heuristics for instructors and writing programs.