In our zeal to resist medical conceptions of stuttering do we just substitute one normalizing litmus test for another?
By rejecting fluency in and of itself or by asking whether forms of knowledge are consistent with our favorite model of disability, what ways of being do we disqualify?
I’m not comfortable telling another stutterer how to think/feel about their stuttering.
Stutterers are always already resisting how they are constituted.
How are they currently resisting societal demands for fluency?
How are they currently resisting their body’s demands for effortful speech?
Rather than see therapy as a means to liberate the self (be it fluent or stuttered) I suggest we see it as an exploration of the stutterer’s resistance and agency.
We explore how the stutterer has been constituted not to determine who they must be but to determine who they do not have to be.
We explore how they got here but leave where they’re going up to them.
In my clinical experience, most stutterers value both an increase in their ability to resist societal pressures to speak fluently and an increase in fluency, or at least easier stuttering.
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What does it mean to invent fluent communication?
James Carey – communication at this time meant both the movement of material things as well as the movement of immaterial ideasIn this model, “successful” communication is marked by a correspondence between the intentional idea of the sender encoded in the message and the idea reproduced in the mind of the receiver. This makes the process of communication brittle and prone to error, for the dream of imperial control it offers rests ultimately upon speeding the message, while protecting it from damage along the voyage.
Who or what is responsible? Where was the "message damaged"?? Systems theory can get us a little further than common sense understandings by attending to distributed agency. I agree with Perrow (1999) that individual failings cannot sufficiently explain “damage” to “symbols, communication patterns, legitimacy, or a number of factors that are not, strictly speaking, people or objects” (p. 64). But leave system theory insofar as deviations in functional systems must be errors, damage defined against system output.
Before going to ritual. so many actants crowd the stage that “it’s never clear who and what is acting” (Latour, 2007, p. 46). This gets at two senses of communicating by accident. For instance, I might say a good class is one in which I communicate a concept well. Yet the passive voice is far more honest. Can lead to resentment. Resentment against an untidy world I, I think, is a central component of disablist feelings against stutterers.
- Carey, J. (2009). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Routledge.
- Gleik, J. (2012). The information: A history, a theory, a flood. Pantheon Books.
- James, W. (1996). A pluralistic universe. University of Nebraska Press. Connolly, W. (2005). Pluralism. Duke University Press.
- Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
- Perrow, C. (1999). Normal accidents: Living with high-risk technologies. Princeton UniversityPress.
- Rosa, H. (2003). Social acceleration: Ethical and political consequences of a desynchronized high-speed society. Constellations, 10(1), 3-33. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.00309
- Virilio, P. (2007). The original accident (J. Rose, Trans.). Polity.
What is the fluent gaze? Can we see it in cinema? Is the gaze the right conception due to the auditory nature of stammering? Is there an oppositional gaze: a stammered/dysfluent gaze?
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‘The scene for the portrait is designed by a stammerer; photographed and painted by a stammerer; of a stammerer stammering. The stammered gaze.’ — Patrick Campbell
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Close-up of Dysfluent mono typeface, in use in Dysfluent magazine issue 1.
What is the fluent gaze? Can we see it in cinema? Is the gaze the right conception due to the auditory nature of stammering? Is there an oppositional gaze: a stammered/dysfluent gaze?
<hr>
‘The scene for the portrait is designed by a stammerer; photographed and painted by a stammerer; of a stammerer stammering. The stammered gaze.’ — Patrick Campbell
<hr>
Close-up of Dysfluent mono typeface, in use in Dysfluent magazine issue 1.
Stammered Gaze. Portrait of Patrick Campbell Stammering. Oil on board 9 x 12 inches. Painting by Paul Aston.
Patrick is a Doctor and a co-author of 'Stammering Pride and Prejudice, Difference not Defect'. Here are Patrick's thoughts on the painting:
'I wanted this portrait to tell my story of stammering. Stammerers do not always get the chance to tell own their story. We are typically type-cast into the role of tragedy, inspiration or clown depending on what seems to best fit the occasion. The gaze of fluent people often decides how we are seen and perceived. Here, I wanted stammerers to take control of the lens/paintbrush.
I chose the location. A local park I love with cute dogs. I tried to stammer on the letter ‘P’. The letter has been a source of anguish over many years as I introduced myself, but these days I try to see stammering as a part of myself, a part of my identity. ‘P-P-Patrick’. I chose a jumper that (in theory) I own but my girlfriend spends more time wearing than me. This reflects that stammering is a shared experience, sometimes an intimate one, with others.
In the background, you may notice a magpie or two sitting among the birch trees. I wanted my northern routes to be a part of the picture as well as my stammer. The magpie is Paul’s representation of this (the symbol of Newcastle United Football Club). The birch trees are Paul’s idea too. A pioneer species that often starts off a new woodland. Make of that what you will, apparently the original black pines of the park were too difficult to integrate into the portrait.
The scene for the portrait is designed by a stammerer; photographed and painted by stammerer; of a stammerer stammering. The stammered gaze.'
- Campbell, P., Constantino, C., Simpson, S. (Eds) (2019) Stammering: Pride & Prejudice. Surrey, UK: J & R Press.
Stammered Gaze. Portrait of Patrick Campbell Stammering. Oil on board 9 x 12 inches. Painting by Paul Aston.
Patrick is a Doctor and a co-author of 'Stammering Pride and Prejudice, Difference not Defect'. Here are Patrick's thoughts on the painting:
'I wanted this portrait to tell my story of stammering. Stammerers do not always get the chance to tell own their story. We are typically type-cast into the role of tragedy, inspiration or clown depending on what seems to best fit the occasion. The gaze of fluent people often decides how we are seen and perceived. Here, I wanted stammerers to take control of the lens/paintbrush.
I chose the location. A local park I love with cute dogs. I tried to stammer on the letter ‘P’. The letter has been a source of anguish over many years as I introduced myself, but these days I try to see stammering as a part of myself, a part of my identity. ‘P-P-Patrick’. I chose a jumper that (in theory) I own but my girlfriend spends more time wearing than me. This reflects that stammering is a shared experience, sometimes an intimate one, with others.
In the background, you may notice a magpie or two sitting among the birch trees. I wanted my northern routes to be a part of the picture as well as my stammer. The magpie is Paul’s representation of this (the symbol of Newcastle United Football Club). The birch trees are Paul’s idea too. A pioneer species that often starts off a new woodland. Make of that what you will, apparently the original black pines of the park were too difficult to integrate into the portrait.
The scene for the portrait is designed by a stammerer; photographed and painted by stammerer; of a stammerer stammering. The stammered gaze.'
- Campbell, P., Constantino, C., Simpson, S. (Eds) (2019) Stammering: Pride & Prejudice. Surrey, UK: J & R Press.
Self portrait stuttering. Oil on board 23 x 31cm. Painting by Paul Aston.
I have a stutter that has helped to shape my life in several ways. Recently I have started to accept my stutter as an integral part of what makes me who I am and feel really happy about it . I've been trying to find positive portraits of stuttering in art history and have drawn a blank so far so I thought I'd make my own. The inspiration came from Giovanni Bellini's 'St. Francis in the Desert' in the Frick collection. In this painting the saints head is thrown back while he receives the stigmata. It has a strangely familiar quality to me - that temporary loss of control over your body which looks similar to the experience of stuttering. I've attempted to create the atmosphere of this temporary loss of control in this piece.
Self portrait stuttering. Oil on board 23 x 31cm. Painting by Paul Aston.
I have a stutter that has helped to shape my life in several ways. Recently I have started to accept my stutter as an integral part of what makes me who I am and feel really happy about it . I've been trying to find positive portraits of stuttering in art history and have drawn a blank so far so I thought I'd make my own. The inspiration came from Giovanni Bellini's 'St. Francis in the Desert' in the Frick collection. In this painting the saints head is thrown back while he receives the stigmata. It has a strangely familiar quality to me - that temporary loss of control over your body which looks similar to the experience of stuttering. I've attempted to create the atmosphere of this temporary loss of control in this piece.
