Disabling Trauma: Toward A Crip Critique of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Angela M. Carter IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Jigna Desai and Dr. Jennifer Pierce, Co-Advisors August 2019 Angela M. Carter Copyright, 2019 Acknowledgments As both a disabled person and a Buddhist practitioner, I believe deeply in the truth of our interdependence. We do nothing on our own. Nothing about who we are, or who we become, is a singularity. Our multitudes not only support one another in ways we cannot always know, they intertwine in ways we cannot begin to imagine. I am here today because of a multitude, a multitude of others. It began with the Ronald E. McNair Program so many years ago - so I must begin with acknowledging the folks there who first told me this was possible. Dr. Harker and Sarah Hass - I quite literally would not be here without you. Christine, thank you in particular, for being the first person to truly teach me how to think, write, and analyze. You opened doors I didn’t know existed and for that this dissertation is your success as much as it is mine. Joan and Dr. Minner, how can I ever thank you? There just aren’t words for the people who adopt you when you most need to be adopted. Thank you. Thinking (and becoming) happens in community and I could not have thought these thoughts without the disability communities I have found. I cannot begin to name all the people I need to name to truly acknowledge everyone who has supported my process. From the folks who have been at the various the Disability Studies conferences and panels, to my friends here in the Critical Disability Studies Collective, to my colleagues at the Disability Resource Center, I am a better scholar, teacher, and person, because of disability community. i I am particularly grateful to be in community with Sami Schalk, Jina Kim, Krystal Clearly, Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons, Sam Schmitt, Tina Catania, Amanda Swenson, Esther Witte, Aimi Hamraie, Samuel Shelton, Jay Wilson, Heather C. Lou, Corbett Laubignat, Jessica Horvath Williams, Shanna Katz Kattari, Jess Waggoner, Tanya Aho, Aly Patsavas, and Theodora Danylevich. Even if they didn’t show up in the bibliography, my scholarship would not be what it is if it wasn’t for the support and mentorship of Margaret Price, Eli Clare, Alison Kafer, Ellen Samuels, Mimi Khúc, Kim Nelson, Melanie Yergeau, Corbett O’Toole, Tammy Berberi, Johnna Keller, Liat Ben-Moshe, and Nirmala Erevelles. I wouldn’t have made it to or through the dissertation stage of graduate school if it wasn’t for my queerworld cohort (QAUREL for life). Karisa, thank you dear friend, for all the feminist life coaching and Taurus real talk. Raechel, we’ve got each other in this you and I, this dissertation has shown me that. Thank you for reading drafts and talking me through it. eWill, we may never agree on A Little Life, but my chapter is better because you read it, thank you for your help. Eli, Libby, and E.G. thank you helping me process all the ways that I am more than the words in this document. Logan, Jason, and Jessica – Thank you so much, especially for all the support you gave me throughout the last year of the dissertation. From making me food, to listening to me process, to checking in on me, to helping me with edits and formatting - I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for you three. This dissertation certainly wouldn’t be where it is today. The words thank you don’t go far enough. Thank you for being my family. ii I want to take a moment to acknowledge my students – especially those in the Bodies That Matter: Feminist Approaches to Disability Studies and the Sex Love and Disability classes that I have taught. My students have kept me grounded, kept me thinking, and kept me moving forward throughout this writing. I would be remised if I did not thank Kim Clarke the GWSS subject librarian who helped me so much as I learned new methods and new modes of research for this project. Thank you, Kim, for your excitement and support about my project. Librarians like you make writing dissertations so much more fun. I’d also like to be a bit unorthodox and acknowledge my first mentor, Mr. Pointer, who taught me what it means to put your everything into something. It was Mr. Pointer who taught me what hard work, dedication, and determination looked like – I am here today because of the foundational mentorship he gave me so many, many years ago. I cannot thank my family enough for all that they have held while I’ve been doing this work. To my brother and my sister, thank you for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. To my mother, thank you for all your patience and understanding. Thank you for talking through so many things that are so hard to talk through, but so important. To Maddy, thank you for reminding me daily that all the things I’ve learned in the last fifteen years of school mean nothing if I can’t say them succinctly and connect them to your lived experience. You keep me real kid, and I’m a better scholar, teacher, and person because of it. To Gabe, my partner and my love, thank you for holding everything together. Thank you for every cup of coffee and every stolen moment. I am here because you’re beside me. Thank you. iii Lastly, thank you to my committee members (both past and present) for pushing me to be more and do more than I thought I ever could. Jennifer, the beginnings of this project are rooted in the thinking I did with you. Thank you for guiding my time in coursework and for helping me develop all that this has become. Reg, thank you for being the first person to encourage me to write about these things, even before I was ready to accept that this was my project, you saw it. Thank you for helping me find a vision. Thank you, Naomi, for helping me find a home here at the U and helping me stay in touch with my love for philosophy. Thank you, Aren, for challenging me to find the nuances in my argument and for all the ways you’ve provided formal and informal mentorship for me throughout these years. Edén, thank you for supporting my passion for teaching and my desire to bring Disability Studies into the GWSS classroom. When I teach, I teach with the goal of becoming an instructor just like you. Margaret – thank you for introducing me to the world I needed to find. It was about six years ago when you were knitting and tweeting through the panel I was speaking on. Afterward, you introduced me to Critical Disability Studies and other crip scholars. My world changed. Thank you. Thank you for all the support and guidance you’ve given for this project, of course, but more importantly thank you for helping me become the scholar and person I am today. And finally, Jigna, here we are. Thank you for every meeting. Every hug. Every word you read three times. Thank you for email. Every text message. Every time you made me do it again and again and again. Thank you for all the patience you had with my iv processes and all the work you did to drag me to this day. This dissertation is as much yours as it is mine. I hope it is something you are proud of. v I dedicate this dissertation to its ghosts, both living and dead: Susan B. Carter Sharyn Eastly Helene “Lanie” Jones Jesús Estrada-Pérez Helga B. Riddle Willem “Ed” Riddle Oma Helene Wolfe vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...…i Dedication…...……………………………………………………………………………vi List of Tables…...…………………………………………………………………...…. viii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….....ix Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter One: “Wounds That Don’t Bleed”: News Media, 9/11, and the Discourses of U.S. Traumatocracy……………………………………………………………………...23 Chapter Two: Toward a Feminist Queer Crip Theory of Trauma, or: When Emma González’s Silence Said Everything………………………………………………….….79 Chapter Three: Trauma and the Trigger Warning Debate: Toward a Feminist Disability Studies Pedagogy……………………………………………………………………….119 Chapter Four: The Cripistemologies of Trauma: A Feminist Queer Crip Interpretation of Hanya Hanagihara’s A Little Life………………………………………………………150 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...202 Notes…………………………………………………………………………………....220 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….225 vii List of Tables Graph A: Time Magazine Reporting on Trauma, 1980-2016……………………………45 Graph B: Pre- and Post- 9/11 Reporting on Trauma……………………………………..46 Graph C: Origins of Trauma, 1980 – 2016………………………………………………48 Graph C1: Origins of Trauma, Pre - 9/11……………..………………………………... 49 Graph C2: Origins of Trauma, Post – 9/11………………………………………………50 Graph D: References to War/Military 1980-2016……………………………………….53 Graph E: Whose Trauma is Recognized, 1980-2016…………………………………….59 Graph E1: Whose Trauma is Recognized, Pre - 9/11…………………………………....60 Graph E2: Whose Trauma is Recognized, Post - 9/11………………………………….. 61 Graph F: Pre- and Post- 9/11 Recovery Narrative……………………………………… 64 Graph G: Pre- and Post- 9/11 Socially Unacceptable Consequences of Trauma--…..67-68 viii List of Figure Figure 1: Chip Kidd’s 1996 NYT Magazine Cover……………………………………167 ix Introduction There is no good beginning to stories like mine. Or to dissertations like this one. If I tell you about my disabling trauma, I risk falling into the exact ideological trappings I aim to critique. You’ll see me either as a victim of my own circumstances—as someone who is attached to their own woundedness.