ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on genre is, in itself, an attempt to address another area that is often overlooked in disability studies. Ferris articulates his sense of the transformative potential of Crip poetry through spatial metaphors: he wants to make the world “roomier” and create “more space” in the imagination. The emphases on representation in general, or on particular types of disability such as the “autism narrative,” can sometimes flatten genre differences between quite different literary forms and divert attention away from the ways in which individual texts adhere to, disrupt or play with the conventions of their particular genre.
