David T. Mitchell
Professor of English
David T. Mitchell is a scholar, editor, history/film exhibition curator, and filmmaker in the field of Disability Studies. As a scholar he is the author of three books: Narrative Prosthesis: Discourses of Disability (U of Michigan P, 2000); Cultural Locations of Disability (U of Chicago P, 2005); The Biopolitics of Disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment (U of Michigan P, 2015). As an editor, he has published four edited scholarly collections: The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (U of Michigan P, 1997); The Encyclopedia of Disability (volume 5: A History of Disability in Primary Sources); The Matter of Disability (U of Michigan P, 2018); and Cultural History of Disability in the Modern Age (Bloomsbury Press, 2020). As an exhibition curator, he created "The Chicago Disability History Exhibit" (Vietnam Veterans Memorial Museum, 2006) and also assembled the program for the "Screening Disability Film Festival" (Chicago, 2006) as well as "DisArt Independent Film Festival" (Grand Rapids, MI, 2015). As a filmmaker, he has produced four award-winning films of Disability arts and culture: "Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back" (1995); "A World Without Bodies" (2002); "Self Preservation: Art of Riva Lehrer" (1995); and "Disability Takes on the Arts" (1996). His documentary film work was given a special acknowledgment in 2007 by "The Way We Live Now: Disability Short Film Festival" and the Munich Film Museum for substantially impacting filmic representations of Disability. He is currently working on a new book and feature-length documentary film on T4.
Books:
David T. Mitchell with Sharon L. Snyder.The Biopolitics of Disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2015.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 2006, 283 pp.
Gary Albrecht, David T. Mitchell, & Sharon L. Snyder (Eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. 5 vols. Thousand Oaks: Sage P, 2005, 3, 200 pp. Senior Editor.
Gary Albrecht, Jerome Bichenback, David T. Mitchell, Walter Schalick, & Sharon L. Snyder (Eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability: A History of Disability in Primary Sources. Vol. 5. Thousand Oaks: Sage P, 2005, 800 pp. General Editor.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 2000, 320 pp.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder (Eds.). The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability. The Body, In Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 1997, 432 pp. Editor.
Book Chapters:
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. "Narrative," in B. Reiss and R. Adams (eds.). Disability Studies Keywords. New York: New York University Press, 2013 [forthcoming].
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Minority Model: from Liberal to Neoliberal Futures of Disability,” in N. Watson, A. Roulstone, & C. Thomas (eds.). Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies. London & New York: Routledge, 2012: 42-50.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. "Permutations of the Species: Disability Independent Film and the Critique of National Normativity," in D. Iodanova and L. Tochin (eds.). Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2012.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Chapter 60: Disability in the American Novel,” in L. Cassuto, C. Eby, & B. Reiss (eds.). Columbia History of the American Novel. Columbia University Press, 2010: 1002-1015.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “Body Sensations: Disability and Body Genres in Film,” in N. Markotic & S. Chivers (eds.). The Problem Body: Projecting Disability on Film. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2010: 179-206.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Narrative Prosthesis,” in L. Davis (ed.). The Disability Studies Reader. 3rd Edition. New York: Routledge, 2010: 274-287.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “‘Jesus Thrown Everything Off Balance:’ Disability Studies and Contemporary Biblical Exegesis,” in H. Avalos, S. Melcher, J. Schipper, S. Studies (eds.). This Abled Body: Rethinking Disability and Biblical Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007: 173-183.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of Metaphor,” in L. Davis (ed.). The Disability Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006: 205-216.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Regulated Bodies: Disability Studies and the Controlling Professions,” in D. Turner & K. Stagg (eds.), Social Histories of Disability and Deformity: Bodies, Images, and Experience, 1650-2000. London: Routledge, 2006: 175-189.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “Die Aufmerksamkeit wieder auf den Körper richten. Disability Studies und der Widerstand gegenüber Verkörperung,” in Ed. J. Weisser & C. Renggli. Disability Studies: Ein Lesebuch. Lucerne: SZH, 2004: 77-105.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Die ‘Subnonnale’ Nation: Von Der Erfindung Einer Behinderten Minderheit (1890 Bis 1930),” in P. Lutz, T. Macho, G. Staupe, Zirden (eds.). Der [Im]perfekte Mensch: Metamorphosen von Normalität un Abweichung. Koln: Bohlau Verlag Gmb & Cie, 2003: 62-77.
David T. Mitchell. “Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of Metaphor.” Enabling the Humanities: A Sourcebook in Disability Studies. Ed. B. Brueggemann, S. Snyder, and R. Thomson. New York: Modern Languages Association P, 2001: 15-30.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Representation and Its Discontents: The Uneasy Home of Disability in Literature and Film,” in The Handbook of Disability Studies. Ed. G. Albrecht, M. Bury, and K. Seelman. Newbury Park: Sage P, 2001: 195-218.
David T. Mitchell. “Introduction.” Henri-Jacques Stiker. The History of Disability. Trans. W. Sayers. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2000, vii-xiv.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Talking About Talking Back: Afterthoughts on the Making of the Disability Documentary Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back,” in M. Epstein and S. Crutchfield (eds.). Points of Contact: Disability, Art, and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 1999 [reprint] 197-217.
David T. Mitchell. “‘The Accents of Loss’: Cultural Crossings as Context in Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” Beyond the Binary. Ed. Timothy Powell. Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 1999: 165-184.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “The Language of Prosthesis in Moby-Dick.” Melville Among the Nations. Ed. S. Marovitz and T. Geopoloulos. Kent, Ohio: Kent State UP. 1998.355-66.
David T. Mitchell. “Modernist Geeks and Postmodern Freaks: Literary Contortions of the Disabled Body.” The Disability Studies Reader. Ed. L. Davis. New York: Routledge, 1997. 302-334.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Narrative Prosthesis: Idiosyncrasy, Incapacity and Immobility in Postmodern Narratives of Disability.” In E. Makas & L. Schlesinger (eds.). Starting Points and End Results in Disability Studies. Portland, ME: Society for Disability Studies and the Edmund Muskie Institute, 1996. 61-65.
David T. Mitchell. “Pynchon, the Puritans and the Technology of the American Palimpsest.” Images of Technology. William Wright and Steven Kaplan (eds.). Colorado Springs: The Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery P, 1994. 70-74.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Writing in the Margins of Hwang’s M. Butterfly: Developing Interpretations into Essays,” in Lillian Back & Merla Wolk (ed.s). Arenas of the Mind: Conversations in Writing. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 174-193.
David T. Mitchell. “A Bridge to the Past: The Native American Past in Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine,” in T. Schirer (ed). Entering the 90’s: The North American Experience. Sault Ste. Marie: Lake Superior State P, 1990. 163-189.
Refereed Journal Articles:
David T. Mitchell. “Gay Pasts and Disability Future(s) Tense: Heteronormative Trauma and Parasitism in Midnight Cowboy.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 8.1(2014): [forthcoming].
David T. Mitchell, Sharon L. Snyder & Linda Ware. "Educational Cripistemology, Or Every Child Left Behind." Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. (Summer 2012): [forthcoming].
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “The Geo-Politics of Disability.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 4.2 (Summer 2010): 113-125.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Disability as Multitude: Re-working Non-Productive Labor Power.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 4-2 (Summer 2010):179-193.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “‘How Do We Get All These Disabilities in Here?:’ Disability Film Festivals as New Spaces of Collectivity.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 2008 (Spring): 11-29.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “Eugenics and the Racial Genome: Politics at the Molecular Level.” Patterns of Prejudice 40.4/5 (November), 2006: 399-412.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Masquerades of Impairment: Charity as a Confidence Game in Melville’s The Confidence-Man.” Leviathan 8.1 (March 2006): 35-60.
David T. Mitchell. “Compulsory Feral-ization: Institutionalizing Disability Studies.” PMLA 120.2 (2005): 627-634.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “Body, Genre, and the New Disability Documentary Cinema.” International Rehabilitation Review 54.1 Oct. 2004: xx-xxv.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “The Visual Foucauldian: Institutional Coercion and Surveillance in Fred Wiseman’s Multi-Handicapped Documentary Series,” The Journal of Medical Humanities. Issue 3-4 Winter 2003: 291-289.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “The Eugenic Atlantic: race, disability, and the making of an international Eugenic Science, 1800-1945.” Disability & Society 18.7 Dec. 2003: 843-864.
Michelle Jarman, Sharon Lamp, David T. Mitchell, Denise Nepveux, Nefertiti Nowell, and Sharon Snyder. “Theorizing Disability as Political Subjectivity: Work by the UIC Disability Collective on Political Subjectivities.” Disability and Society 17.5 July 2002: 555-570.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Disability Studies, Körper und das komplexe Feld der Identitäten.” [Ein Interview von Anja Tervooren]. Die Pholosophin. 13. Jahrgang, Heft 25, Juni 2002: 115-124.
Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell. “Out of the ashes of eugenics: diagnostic regimes in the United States and the making of a disability minority.” Patterns of Prejudice. Ed. Sander L. Gilman. 36.1 (2002): 79-103.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Re-engaging the Body: Disability Studies and the Resistance to Embodiment.” Public Culture. Ed. C. Breckenridge. 35.3 (fa112001): 367-90.
David T. Mitchell. ‘‘‘Too Much of a Cripple’: The Language of Prosthesis in Melville’s Moby-Dick.” Leviathan. 1.1 (March 2000): 3-17.
David T. Mitchell. “Of Cannibals and Tricksters: Images of Native Americans in American Culture.” Journal of Popular Culture 32.4 (Spring 1999): 101-118.
David T. Mitchell. “Fostering Disability Studies in the Academy.” Disability Studies Quarterly 19.1 (Winter 1999): 23-25.
David T. Mitchell. “Immigration and the Impossible Homeland in Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” Antipodas: Journal of Spanish and Galician Studies X No. 10 (1998): 25-40.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Talking about Talking Back: Afterthoughts On the Making of the Disability Documentary, Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back.” Michigan Quarterly Review 37.2 (Spring 1998): 316-336.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Exploring Foundations: Languages of Disability, Identity, and Culture.” Disability Studies Quarterly 17.4 (Fall 1997): 231-237.
David T. Mitchell. “National Families and Familial Nations: Communista Americans in Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 15.1 (Winter, 1996): 51-60.
Review Articles:
David T. Mitchell. “Institutionalization as ‘Alternative Lifestyle.'”
David T. Mitchell. “Unexpected Adaptations: disability and evolution.” Disability & Society 18.5 (2003): 691-696.
David T. Mitchell. “Body Solitaire: The Singular Subject of Disability Autobiography.” American Quarterly 52.2 (June 2000): 311-315.
David T. Mitchell. “Invisible Bodies and the Corporeality of Difference.” Review Essay of The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Disability in the Movies, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, and Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. The Minnesota Review 48 (Fall 1997): 98-108.
David T. Mitchell. “Depathologizing the Medicalized Body.” Rev. of The Normal and the Pathological. Disability Studies Quarterly (Winter, 1997): 34-35.
David T. Mitchell. “Prosthesis as the Language of Metaphor.” Rev. of Prosthesis. Disability Studies Quarterly (Summer, 1997): 22-23
Encyclopedia Entries:
David T. Mitchell. “Dart, Justin.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 343.
David T. Mitchell & Carrie Sandahl. “Documentary Film.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 515-517.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Eugenics.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 624-625.
David T. Mitchell. “Evolutionary Theory.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 641-644.
David T. Mitchell. “Dorothea Lange.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1018.
David T. Mitchell. “Lavater, Johann Kaspar.” G. Albrecht, 1. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1029.
David T. Mitchell. “Murphy, Robert Francis.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1119.
David T. Mitchell. “Mutation Theory.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1125-1126.
David T. Mitchell. “O’Connor, Flannery.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 117-1178.
David T. Mitchell. “Racism.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1345-1347.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Representations of Disability, History of.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P,2006: 1382-1394.
David T. Mitchell. “Saint Vitus’ Dance.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1425.
David T. Mitchell. “Witchcraft.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: 1639-1641.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Toward a History of Disability in Primary Sources.” G. Albrecht, J. Bickenbach, D. Mitchell, W. Schalick, S. Snyder (eds.). Encyclopedia of Disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 2006: xliii-xlvii.
Other Articles:
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “Disability and Its Detractors: Lessons from Frida Kahlo.” The San Francisco Chronicle. Sept. 2000. Co-author.
David T. Mitchell. “The Frontier That Never Ends.” The Ragged Edge. Jan-Feb 1997.
David T. Mitchell. “Creating a More Accessible MLA,” (with Sharon Snyder) MLA Newsletter 28.3 (Fall, 1996): 8-9.
David T. Mitchell & Sharon L. Snyder. “The Status of Disability Studies in the Humanities.” The DSDG Newsletter 1 (January, 1995): 2-4.