Eli Clare

Eli Clare (born 1963)[1] is an American writer, activist, educator, and speaker. His work focuses on queer, transgender, and disability issues.[2][3] Clare was one of the first scholars to popularize the bodymind concept.[4]

Eli Clare
Born1963 (age 59–60)[1]
Coos Bay, Oregon, U.S.[1]
Alma materMills College,
Goddard College

Early life and education

Clare was born in Coos Bay in 1963 and grew up in Port Orford, Oregon.[5][1] He attended Reed College before transferring to Mills College where he received a degree in women's studies in 1985.[1] Clare earned an M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Goddard College in 1993.[1]

Career

Eli Clare coordinated a rape prevention program,[6] and helped organize the first Queerness and Disability Conference in 2002.[7][8]

His work is associated with the second wave of the disability rights movement.[9]

Clare has received a number of awards for his work, including the Creating Change Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and LGBT Artist of the Year from Michigan Pride.[10] In 2018, Clare received the Richard L. Schlegel Award for visionary LGBTQ leadership from American University.[11] That year, his book Brilliant Imperfection won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction from Publishing Triangle.[12] In 2019, he was awarded a Disability Futures Fellowship by the Ford Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.[13][14]

Clare was a visiting scholar at the University at Buffalo's Center for Diversity Innovation for the 2020–2021 academic year.[15][16] He is also on the advisory board for the Disability Project, housed under the Transgender Law Center, the largest national trans-led organization.[17]

Bodymind

Eli Clare is one of the first scholars to popularize the concept of bodymind. Along with Margaret Price, Clare proposed that the bodymind expresses the interrelatedness of mental and physical processes.[18] Clare uses bodymind in his work Brilliant Imperfection as a way to resist common Western assumptions that the body and mind are separate entities, or that the mind is “superior” to the body.[19][20]

Other prominent scholars to theorize on bodymind include Price, Sami Schalk,[21] Gloria Anzaldua,[22] and Alyson Patsavas.[23]

Publications

Eli Clare has published two books of creative non-fiction, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (1999, 2009, 2015) and Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure (2017); a collection of poetry, The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion (2007); and contributed to a number of periodicals and anthologies.

Clare's scholarly work has been published in Public Culture,[24] GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies,[25] Seattle Journal for Social Justice,[26] Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies,[27][28] Tikkun,[29] and Disability Studies Quarterly.[30]

Clare has also submitted chapters to the following anthologies: Gender and Women's Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain,[31] the fourth edition of The Disability Studies Reader,[32] Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory,[33] Material Ecocriticism,[34] The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy,[35] Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out,[36] Queerly Classed,[37] Unruly Bodies: Life Writing by Women with Disabilities,[38] and Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories.[39]

Queerly Classed is a collection of essays discussing the intersections of class background, social status, and "queerness," to which Clare contributed the essay "Losing Home."[37] The anthology won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Studies[40] and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Awards' Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award.[41]

Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories is a collection of personal stories from gay men with disabilities edited by Bob Guter and John R. Killacky. To this anthology, Eli Clare submitted "Gawking, Gaping, Staring."[39] The book won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award for the Anthologies/Non-fiction category.[39]

Clare's poems and essays have been published in Sojourner: The Women’s Forum,[32] Sinister Wisdom,[42] Cultural Activisms: Political Voices, Poetic Voices,[43] Points of Contact: Disability, Art, and Culture,[44] and The Arc of Love: An Anthology of Lesbian Love Poems.[45]

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation is an autobiographical collection of essays first published by South End Press in 1999 and 2009 and republished by Duke University Press in 2015.[46] Exile and Pride's expanded edition, published in 2009, was a finalist for Foreword's 2009 INDIES Book of the Year Award.[47] The 2015 edition includes a foreword by Aurora Levins Morales and an afterword by Dean Spade.

Exile and Pride discusses Clare's experiences as a "white disabled genderqueer activist/writer" and explores the meaning of "home" through autobiographical narratives while covering the topics of oppression, power, resistance, environmental destruction, capitalism, sexuality, institutional violence, gender, and social justice more generally.[48]

The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion

The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion is a collection of poetry published by Homofactus Press in 2007, though many of the poems had been previously published. The collection was a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 2007.[49]

In this work, Eli Clare "explores how bodies carry history and identity over time". The poems include contradiction and repetition as they discuss the themes of disability, race, gender, violence, and sexuality.[50]

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure was published by Duke University Press in 2017. In 2018, Brilliant Imperfection won the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction.[51]

In Brilliant Imperfection, Eli Clare explores the concept of cure, "the deeply held belief that body-minds considered broken need to be fixed," [52] while using memoir, history, and critical analysis to discuss the intersectionality of race, disability, sexuality, class, and gender, as well as environmental politics. Clare is one of the first scholars to popularize the concept of bodymind, which he uses in Brilliant Imperfection as a way to resist common Western assumptions that the body and mind are separate entities or that the mind is “superior” to the body.[19][20]

Personal life

Eli Clare has cerebral palsy[53] and identifies as genderqueer[54][55] and as a trans man.[56] He currently lives near Lake Champlain in Vermont.[57]

References
  1. Brueggemann, Brenda Jo (2012-08-02). Arts and Humanities. SAGE Publications. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-4833-0592-9.
  2. Armour, Carly (2012-03-21). "Gawking, gaping, staring: gawking, gaping, staring Queer, transgender and disability rights activist visits April 5". Iowa Now. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  3. Lau, Travis Chi Wing (August 2017). "Interview with Eli Clare - Issue 5". The Deaf Poets Society. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  4. Cartwright, Ryan Lee (2017-08-31). "Review of Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure". Disability Studies Quarterly. 37 (3). doi:10.18061/dsq.v37i3.5996. ISSN 2159-8371.
  5. Wheeler, Elizabeth A. (2013). "Don't Climb Every Mountain". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 20 (3): 553–573. doi:10.1093/isle/ist054. ISSN 1076-0962. JSTOR 44087263.
  6. Anderson-Minshall, Jacob (2021-01-29). "Disabled LGBTQ+ Creatives Imagine a Better Tomorrow". Advocate. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
  7. "Eli Clare on Disability, Illness and Environmental and Social Justice". www2.hws.edu. 29 October 2019. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  8. "Conference Papers". Queer Disability Conference. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  9. Berne, Patty (2015-06-09). "Disability Justice - a working draft". Sins Invalid. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
  10. St. Cyr, Laura (9 December 2014). "Lunch & Learn with Eli Clare - Moving Beyond Pity & Inspiration: Disability as Social Justice Issue - Jan 8". Today at Elon. Elon University. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  11. Zurn, Perry; Ferguson, Matt; Masson, Stephen; Henzen, Hana; Pruski, Scout; Nellis, Leslie; Bethel, Erica. "The AU Trans Experience: Then and Now". American University Library. American University. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  12. "The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  13. "Ford and Mellon Foundations Announce Fund For Disabled Artists". Art Insider. 2020-10-14. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  14. Galuppo, Mia (2020-10-14). "'Crip Camp' Co-Director Jim LeBrecht Among Disability Futures Fellows". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  15. "Eli Clare". University at Buffalo Center for Diversity Innovation. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  16. "Diversity scholars announced". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  17. "Programs: Disability Project". Transgender Law Center. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  18. Price, Margaret (2015). "The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain". Hypatia. 30 (1): 268–284. doi:10.1111/hypa.12127. ISSN 1527-2001. S2CID 144751115.
  19. Clare, Eli (February 2017). Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-6287-6. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  20. Fordham News (15 April 2019). "Distinguished Lecture on Disability Examines 'Body-Mind' and Nature". Fordham University. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  21. Ginsburg, Faye; Rapp, Rayna (2020). "Disability/Anthropology: Rethinking the Parameters of the Human". Current Anthropology. 61 (S21): S4–S15. doi:10.1086/705503. ISSN 0011-3204. S2CID 213140543.
  22. Scott, Charles; Tuana, Nancy (2017). "Nepantla: Writing (from) the In-Between". The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 31 (1): 1–15. doi:10.5325/jspecphil.31.1.0001. ISSN 0891-625X. S2CID 151982170.
  23. Danylevich, Theodora; Patsavas, Alyson (2021). "Cripistemologies of Crisis: Emergent Knowledges for the Present". Lateral. 10 (1). doi:10.25158/L10.1.7. ISSN 2469-4053. S2CID 236396832.
  24. Clare, Eli (Fall 2001). "Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and Queerness". Public Culture. 13 (3): 359–365. doi:10.1215/08992363-13-3-359. S2CID 143974897. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  25. Clare, Eli (2003). "Gawking, Gaping, Staring". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 9 (1–2): 257–261. doi:10.1215/10642684-9-1-2-257. S2CID 142998237. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  26. Clare, Eli (May 2010). "Resisting Shame: Making Our Bodies Home". Seattle Journal of Social Justice. 8 (2): 455–465. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  27. Clare, Eli (2014). "Yearning toward Carrie Buck". Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. 8 (3): 169–189. doi:10.1353/aim.1995.0006. S2CID 143767269.
  28. Clare, Eli (January 2014). "Comment from the Field: Yearning toward Carrie Buck". Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. 8 (3): 335–344. doi:10.3828/jlcds.2014.26.
  29. Clare, Eli (2014). "Love: A Letter to Ashley's Father". Tikkun. 29 (4): 35–36. doi:10.1215/08879982-2810098. S2CID 178534000. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  30. Clare, Eli (2017). "The Ferocious Need for Liberation". Disability Studies Quarterly. 37 (3). doi:10.18061/dsq.v37i3.5972. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  31. Hobbs, Margaret; Rice, Carla, eds. (2018). Gender and Women's Studies: Critical Terrain (Second ed.). Toronto: Critical Edition. ISBN 978-0889615915.
  32. Davis, Lennard J., ed. (2013-05-02). The Disability Studies Reader (4th ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-13457-0.
  33. Ray, Sarah Jaquette; Sibara, Jay, eds. (2017). Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9781496201676.
  34. Iovino, Serenella; Opperman, Serpil, eds. (2014). Material Ecocriticism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253013989.
  35. Martin Alcoff, Linda; Feder Kittay, Eva, eds. (2007). The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1002/9780470696132. ISBN 9780631224273.
  36. Fries, Kenny (1997). Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out. New York: Plume. ISBN 9780452279131.
  37. Raffo, Susan, ed. (1997). Queerly Classed. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-561-9.
  38. Mintz, Susannah B. (2007). Unruly Bodies: Life Writing by Women with Disabilities. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807877630.
  39. Guter, Bob; Killacky, John R., eds. (2004). Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories. New York: Harrington Park Press. ISBN 978-1-56023-456-2. OCLC 51117771.
  40. "Lambda Literary Awards Finalists & Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  41. "Stonewall Book Awards". American Library Association. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  42. "Sinister Wisdom 46: Dyke Lives". Sinister Wisdom. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  43. James Gonzalez, Gertrude M.; Mamary, Anne J. M., eds. (1999). Cultural Activisms: Poetic Voices, Political Voices. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-3966-1.
  44. Rose, Martha (2002). "Review of Points of Contact: Disability, Art, and Culture". Isis. 93 (3): 473–475. doi:10.1086/374077. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 10.1086/374077.
  45. Coss, Clare (1996). Coss, Clare (ed.). The Arc of Love: An Anthology of Lesbian Love Poems. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-81446-9.
  46. "Eli Clare on Examining Disability Justice and Writing Cross-Genre". Lambda Literary. 2018-04-29. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  47. ""Exile and Pride, Classics Edition" is a 2009 Foreword INDIES Finalist". Foreword. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  48. "Exile and Pride". Duke University Press.
  49. "Previous Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  50. Vallejos, Jorge Antonio (2010-08-11). "Eli Clare talks trans pride, disability and the history of the freak show". Xtra Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  51. "The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  52. Smith, Sue (2017-09-26). "Book Review: Brilliant Imperfection". BMJ Blogs. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  53. "My cerebral palsy isn't a problem to be cured, says writer Eli Clare". CBC Radio. 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  54. "Listen: Author Eli Clare on Cure, Disability, Queerness, and Natural Worlds". Swarthmore College. 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  55. Price Herndl, Diane (2013). "Politics and Sympathy: Recognition and Action in Feminist Literary Disability Studies". Legacy. 30 (1): 187. doi:10.5250/legacy.30.1.0187. ISSN 0748-4321. S2CID 142632668.
  56. Puar, Jasbir K. (2014-05-01). "Disability". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 1 (1–2): 77–81. doi:10.1215/23289252-2399659. ISSN 2328-9252.
  57. "Eli Clare, "Cautionary Tales: Environmental Injustice, Disability, and Chronic Illness"". UCLA Center for the Study of Women. 4 September 2018. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
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