Research
Dr. St. Pierre’s research seeks to make interventions on both theoretical and practical fronts. His work is part of the growing sub-field of Dysfluency Studies, and by opening up theoretical space within Critical Disability Studies for an analysis of communication that is informed by the perspectives of disabled communicators, he invites Critical Disability Studies to consider the political and ethical dimensions of communication breakdown. As our society becomes increasingly organized around the production of knowledge and information, the need for a critical analysis of communication ability and disability continues to grow.
As a pragmatic, his work seeks to conceptualize and generate resources for radically accessible and hospitable communicative practices. Working towards access for people with communication disabilities means reshaping the social norms and stigmas that keep people silent as well as the inflexible (ableist) pace of communication in everyday life. These accessible practices could inform, among other things, institutional reforms that are essential to academic accessibility.
Research Projects
Principal Investigator, Stuttering Commons. (2023-2026). (SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, “The Stuttering Curriculum: Mobilizing Dysfluency Studies across Theory and Practice”), $199,848
This project is motivated by the challenge that, across North America, Europe, and the Global South, people who stutter lack vital access to critical resources, even though the disability remains highly stigmatized. The aim of this partnership is to augment an existing network of scholars, clinicians, and artists who are already disseminating knowledge about dysfluency studies and developing partnerships in key areas, thus mobilizing the body of knowledge produced by dysfluency studies. Ultimately, Stuttering Commons seek to inform and reshape public knowledge, discussion, and policy about stuttering through frameworks informed by the social sciences and the humanities, thereby situating these broad domains at the centre of academic research and future policy on dysfluency.
Monographs
St. Pierre, Joshua. (2022). Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication. University of Michigan Press.
Selected Refereed Publications
St. Pierre, Joshua. (2021). “From Perfectly Safe to Palliative Care: Disability Justice after Eschatology,” Political Theology Network (January 2021)
St. Pierre, Joshua. (2020). “Talking Heads and Shitting in the Street: Stuttering Parrhesia in Three Modes.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies 5.2: 179-195.
St. Pierre, Joshua and Charis St. Pierre. (2018). "Governing the Voice: A Critical History of Speech-Language Pathology." Foucault Studies 24: 151-184.
St. Pierre, Joshua. (2017). “Becoming Dysfluent: Fluency as Biopolitics and Hegemony.” Journal of Cultural and Literary Disability Studies 11.3: 339-356.
St. Pierre, Joshua. (Winter 2015). "Distending Straight-Masculine Time: A Phenomenology of the Disabled Speaking Body." Hypatia 30.1: 49-65.
St. Pierre, Joshua. (August 2015). "Cripping Communication: Speech, Disability, and Exclusion in Liberal Humanist and Posthumanist Discourse." Communication Theory 25.3: 330-348.
Selected Book Chapters
St. Pierre, Joshua. “Stuttering and Ableism: A Study of Eventfulness.” In Bloomsbury Guide to the Philosophy of Disability, ed. Shelley Tremain, Bloomsbury, (2023): 292-313.
St. Pierre, Joshua. “Communicating By Accident.” In Palgrave Handbook of Disability and Communication, ed. Michael Jeffries, Joy Cypher, Jim Ferris, and Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock, Palgrave, (2022): 31-43.
St. Pierre, Joshua. “An Introduction to Stuttering and Disability Theory.” In Stammering Pride and Prejudice, ed. Patrick Campbell, Christopher Constantino, and Sam Simpson, J&R Press, (2019): 3-18
Wilson, Robert and Joshua St. Pierre. “Eugenics and Disability.” In Rethinking Disability, 2nd edition, ed. Patrick Devliger et al., Garant Uitgevers NV Press (2016), 93-112.
Joshua St. Pierre “The Construction of the Disabled Speaker: Locating Stuttering in Disability Studies.” In Literature, Speech Disorders, and Disability: Talking Normal, edited by Christopher Eagle, 9-23. New York: Routledge (2013): 19-23
Edited collections
“Reimagining Curative Eschatology and Disability Justice,” Political Theology Network (January 2021)
“Telling Ourselves Sideways, Crooked, and Crip,” co-edited with Danielle Peers, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 5.3 (October 2016).
“Untimely Bodies: Futurity, Resistance, and Non-Normative Embodiment,” co-edited with Kristin Rodier, Feral Feminisms 5 (Spring 2016).
Selected Conference Presentations
“Locating Dysfluency within Critical Disability Studies.” American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) Masterclass. Louisiana. November 2022.
“Crip Time and Curative Eschatologies.” Society for Phenomenological and Existential Philosophy Annual Conference. College Station, TX. October 2022.
“Why the Stuttering Community Needs Disability Studies; Why Disability Studies Needs Dysfluency.” Invited lecture for the National Stuttering Association Research Symposium. Fort Lauderdale, FL. June 2019.
“Challenges for Stuttering Activism: Fluency, Dysfluency, and the Production of Human Capital.” Metaphoric Stammerers and Embodied Speakers. Dublin, Ireland. October 2018
"Postindustrialism and the Spectre of Aphasia." Canadian Disability Studies Association. Calgary, AB. May 2016.
"Fluency and the Biopolitics of Hegemony." Existential Phenomenology Theory and Culture. Calgary, AB. May 2016.
“Stuttering What May Be: Disability and the Disruption of Fluent Ontologies.” Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy. Regina, SK. October 2015.
“Ecstatic Voices and Ethical Responsibility.” Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy at Canadian Philosophical Association. Ottawa, ON. June 2015.
“Capitalist Communication.” Canadian Disability Studies Association. Ottawa, ON. June 2015.