Disability Studies, Literature, and Humanities: An Interview with Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé is the former president of Modern Language Association of America and a renowned scholar in English literature, Disability Studies, and cultural politics. He has profound understandings about the phenomenon of disability, the acceptance of disability in society, and the literary studies of disability. His major works include Life as Jamie Knows It: An Exceptional Child Grows Up (2016), The Secret Life of Stories: From Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the Way We Read(2016)and so on. His articles, such as "Representation," "Disability, and Democracy, and the New Genetics," and "Disability and Narrative," are included in famous Disability Studies works and A&HCI journals. At the 2020 Modern Language Association convention, Bérubé accepted the invitation of Yang Yang, a doctoral candidate of Sichuan University, to do an interview. The interview touches upon the definition of disability and Disability Studies, the life writing of disability based on Bérubé's own family experience, the generating social environment of disability literature in the West in the 20th century, the approaches and future trends of literary disability studies, etc. Literary disability studies investigates disabled characters and the issues of disability in literature, thus playing an important role in expanding the humane width of literary studies and enriching the ethical care of literary criticism.