The Art of Flourishing Conversations on Disability

Disabled people are experts in innovation and adaptation, experts in building networks of support and knowledge sharing, and experts in navigating a world that is not built for them. This expertise is not a niche form of knowledge, but one that speaks to a fundamental question about how we should live together--and even thrive together--amid the vast landscape of human difference. In pieces discussing everything from moving with guide dogs to hiking on wheels to nurturing chosen family, The Art of Flourishing offers a window into the innumerable and varied ways scholars, artists, writers, and thought leaders with disabilities understand what it means to "flourish."

For some, it means contesting the medical establishment's narratives of technological salvation that attempt to "fix" people who don't need fixing. For others, it means cultivating interdependent networks of artistic collaboration, or it means having agency in choosing how one appears in and navigates public space. Based on a series of public talks hosted by The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, this volume demonstrates the incredible range of priorities, practices, and possibilities that characterize disabled experience. It also invites both scholarly and public audiences to imagine what it would take to build a world in which everyone gets to exercise their own capacities in ways they find meaningful.

Liz Bowen is Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University and a Presidential Scholar at The Hastings Center. She is a disability studies scholar and clinical ethicist trained in literary studies, whose research explores how cultural narratives of disability shape public perceptions of ethical responsibility. She has published widely in both scholarly and popular venues including Scientific American, The Believer, Boston Review, Public Books, English Literary History, and Disability Studies Quarterly.

Joel Michael Reynolds is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University, Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Faculty in the Georgetown University School of Medicine and Medical Center, and Senior Bioethics Advisor to and Fellow of The Hastings Center. Reynolds is the author or co-editor of six books as well as over sixty scholarly publications. They founded The Journal of Philosophy of Disability and co-founded the book series Oxford Studies in Disability, Ethics, and Society.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is professor emerita of English and bioethics at Emory University. She is a Hastings Center Fellow and senior advisor, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is co-editor of About Us: Essays from the New York Times about Disability by People with Disabilities and author of Staring: How We Look and several other books.

Erik Parens is a Senior Research Scholar at The Hastings Center and Director of the Center's Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities. He is the author or editor of several books in bioethics, including Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing, and a Habit of Thinking, as well as numerous articles and commentaries for academic journals and general-interest publications.