Peculiar Places

"Peculiar Places represents applied queercrip theory at its best. Cartwright's writing is lucid, even page-turning, and his scholarship sound and persuasive, arguing that sensationalized accounts of the disabled, dispossessed, and marginalized in twentieth-century rural America can be repurposed to unpack countless norms and deviancies. In its bold theoretical interventions, innovative historical analysis, and stunning argumentation, Peculiar Places is outstanding, a model of intellectual courage. This pathbreaking work will inspire and steer scholarship for decades to come." * John Howard, King's College London *
"By offering detailed analyses of quotidian encounters, Cartwright reveals the complex ways 'poor rural white folks living on the margins' were defined, pathologized, surveilled, and violated. But rather than present binary narratives of ableist victimization and heroic transgression, Cartwright underscores the way these same people often relied on racial hierarchies and settler claims to indigenous land. Peculiar Places offers a way of doing disability studies that can simultaneously recognize queercrip practices of interdependence and violence." * Alison Kafer, University of Texas at Austin *
"Offers generative contributions, more broadly, to the field of queer studies through a nuanced and complicated view of the rural, and. . . a necessary intersectional queer lens to rural studies. Ultimately, [Peculiar Places] asks the reader to interrogate not just ways of looking but also the implications of being seen. " * Cleveland Review of Books *
"Peculiar Places challenges the reader to consider the complex interconnections and interdependencies of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability in rural spaces in an effective and accessible manner. As such, this book contributes to a better understanding of the anti-idyllic lens through which individuals are taught to read rural America." * Gender Forum *
"Ryan Lee Cartwright's Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity is a clear and well-researched book, one that deploys insights from queer and disability studies to explore the contradictory place of white rural nonconformity." * H-Net Reviews *