Check out this interview with our new Disability Studies Program Director, José Alaniz!
1. How did you become interested in Disability Studies?
I received my PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley. I wrote a dissertation on Death and Dying in late/post-Soviet Russia. While at Berkeley, I fell into the orbit of the university’s Disability Studies program. Conversing with and learning from scholars like Susan Schweik and Marsha Saxton really affected my thinking, thought that would bear fruit only after graduate school. If I had to reduce it to one event, it would be a fantastic guest lecture by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, whose contents eventually saw print in her article “Seeing the Disabled.”
2. What are your favorite films about disability?
A tough one! Tod Browning’s horror film Freaks (1932) still has a power to shock, while William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) paints a more sensitive picture, albeit a sentimental one. A film I’m teaching in my current course on Disability in Russian Cinema, Liubov Arkus’ Anton’s Right Here (2012) is a problematic but intriguing “first-person” depiction of autism. Those three come immediately to mind.
3. How does the representation of disability in comics differ by country?
A very big question; let’s stick with the two comics cultures I know best: the USA and Russia. My upcoming (November, 2014) book Death, Disability and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond tracks the evolution of disability in the superhero genre from about 1960 to 1993. In this era we see an increasing acknowledgment of the disabled as a part of the population, doubtless reflecting their greater visibility as a result of civil rights activism and social pressures which eventually led to the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990. In Russia, on the other hand, the disabled have historically led much more isolated, invisible, second-class lives. Add to that that Russia had no comics culture in the Western sense (partly due in the 20th century to Soviet disdain for US-type popular culture), and we see until very recently precious few representations of the disabled in Russian comics (which are themselves largely a post-Soviet phenomenon). In this regard I would highlight the work of artists Tatyana Faskhutdinova, Viktoria Lomasko and Yanka Smetanina. I direct those interested to my first book, Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (2010).
4. Do students really get to read comics in your classes?
Absolutely. In fact, those wanting to delve into both comics and disability should consider enrolling in my winter 2015 class, DIS ST 430: “Disability in Graphic Narrative.”
5. If you were a superhero, what would your super power be?
Flying, totally. But then I’d also need invulnerability, because without it flying would quickly kill you. They don’t usually tell you that in the comics.
To learn more about his recent book, go here:http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1709.