Synopsis
A study tracing how the modern statistical idea of the 'normal' body constructed disability as deviance to be corrected.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workThe category of the normal is a recent invention that manufactures disability as its excluded opposite.
It shows that 'normalcy' is historically produced, not natural, reframing disability as a problem of norms not bodies.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with The Minority Body.
Reading note
Read it for its genealogy of 'normal,' following Davis from statistics and eugenics into culture.
Best paired with
The Minority Body