The Department of Women's and Gender Studies on behalf of the National Women's Studies Association Alison Piepmeier review committee and the Governing Council would like to congratulate Jasbir Puar on co-winning the
NWSA 2018 Alison Piepmeier Book Prize
The prize is awarded for groundbreaking scholarship in women, gender, and sexuality studies that makes significant contributions to feminist disability studies scholarship thanks to a gift from Susan Shaw, Patti Duncan, Jane Nichols, Kryn Feehling-Burton, and Nancy Barbour.
2017-2019 Alison Piepmeier Book Award Committee:
Susan Shaw, Oregon State University (Chair)
Alison Kafer, Southwestern University
Tey Meadow, Columbia University (2018-2020)
The committee reported: The Right to Maim marks a paradigm shift in thinking fully about the global politics of disability and capacity. Puar argues that debilitation and the state production of disability are biopolitical projects both useful and productive for states under Neoliberal capitalism. Weaving disability studies together with queer theory, transgender studies, biopolitics and assemblage theory, Puar moves from the racialized constitution of transgender through the Israeli occupation of Palestine, focusing on what it means to manipulate bodies on the population level, neither through the production of life nor death in the classic Foucaultian sense, but with an eye toward debilitating an entire class for social, political or economic gain. A major milestone book across multiple disciplines, with much to teach us about contemporary disability politics.
