The Art of Flourishing

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.