Tobin Siebers

Tobin Siebers (January 29, 1953 – January 29, 2015) was an American professor of literature, art, and design at the University of Michigan, and a key figure in the development of disability studies.

Early life and education

Siebers was born January 29, 1953 in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, the son of Harold Siebers and Marion Jansen Siebers.^[1] He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis at the age of two years old and lived with post-polio syndrome for the rest of his life. Siebers graduated from Kaukauna High School in 1971.^[2] He earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1975, MA in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1976, and a PhD in comparative literature from Johns Hopkins University in 1980.^[3]

Career

Siebers first wrote about his experience living with polio in his 1998 essay "My Withered Limb."^[4] which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 1999.^[5] His important books include Disability Theory (2008) and Disability Aesthetics (2010). In Disability Theory Siebers writes that "Disability is not a physical or mental defect but a cultural and minority identity."^[6] Performance artist and disability activist Petra Kuppers referred to these works as "field defining."^[7] He received the James T. Neubacher Award in 2009, from the Council for Disability Concerns.^[7]

Publications

• The Ethics of Criticism (1990)^[8][9]
• Cold War Criticism and the Politics of Skepticism (1993)^[10]
• Heterotopia: Postmodern Utopia and the Body Politic (1994, editor)^[11]
• "My Withered Limb" (1998)^[4]
• The Body Aesthetic: From Fine Art to Body Modification (2000, editor)^[12]
• "Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to the New Realism of the Body" (2001)
• "Disability as Masquerade" (2004)^[13]
• Disability Theory (2008)^[14][15]
• Zerbrochene Schönheit (2009)^[16]
• Disability Aesthetics (2010)
• "A Sexual Culture for Disabled People" (2012)^[17]
• "Disability and the Theory of Complex Embodiment: For Identity Politics in a New Register" (2016)^[18]
• "Returning the Social to the Social Model" (2019)^[19]

Death and legacy

Siebers died in 2015, at the age of 62.^[7][20] His papers are in the collection of the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library.^[3] In 2015, the University of Michigan Press and Department of English Language and Literature established The Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities, for best book-length manuscript on a topic of pressing urgency to disability studies in the humanities.^[21]