Society for Disability Studies

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SDS awards several prizes each year including the Senior Scholar Award, Tanis Doe Award and Irving K. Zola Award for Emerging Scholars in Disability Studies. The Tyler Rigg Award is a new award chosen by Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ).

2010 Senior Scholar Award: Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

SDS’s Senior Scholar Award is granted each year to an outstanding scholar with more than a decade of experience and a terminal degree in his/her field who has demonstrated leadership and made a significant contribution to the field of disability studies. This year’s winner is Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Professor of Women’s Studies at Emory University. Her fields of study are feminist theory, American literature, and disability studies, and her work develops the field of disability studies in the humanities and women’s and gender studies. Garland-Thomson’s early works, now considered classics in the field, transformed scholarship on bodies and their representations, pioneered feminist disability studies in literary and cultural theory and analysis, and helped to bring disability studies to the attention of scholars throughout the academy. Her recent work continues to deliver bold and sophisticated analyses of disability and its importance for understanding interaction and our social world. In conjunction with her scholarship, Garland-Thomson brings her passion for disability studies into the classroom through innovative courses such as “Extreme Bodies: Race, Gender, Disability, and Identity” and “Disabled Women’s Lifewriting.” Moreover, she dedicates tremendous energy to cultivating the field of disability studies by supporting a variety of professional organizations including the Society for Disability Studies. Dr. Garland-Thomson’s significant contributions have fostered the growth, rigor, and recognition of disability studies and thereby benefited scholars throughout the field.

2010 Irving K. Zola Award for Emerging Scholars: Dr. Mara Mills

The Irving K. Zola Award is typically given to an emerging scholar in disability studies, and recognizes excellence in research and writing and that shares the values and commitment to disability studies exemplified by Irving K. Zola’s life and scholarship. The award carries with it a $350 prize and opportunity to publish in DSQ. This year’s recipient is Dr. Mara Mills, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her submission “On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener and the Hearing Glove” was called “fascinating” and “thought-provoking” by reviewers.

2010 Tyler Rigg Award: Dr. Rachel E. Hile

Disability Studies Quarterly is pleased to announce Dr. Rachel E. Hile as the winner of the first annual Tyler Rigg Award for outstanding scholarship in the field of disability studies and literature. Generously funded by the Tyler Rigg Foundation, the purpose of the award is to facilitate, promote and encourage ongoing scholarly exploration of disability issues, with emphasis on the examination of representations of disability through the study of literature. The $500 prize is granted to one outstanding paper published in DSQ each calendar year. The winning article is titled “Disability and the Characterization of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew,” and appears in Volume 29, Issue 4 of DSQ. Dr. Hile is an assistant professor in the Department of English & Linguistics at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.