Launching Paul Longmore's "Telethons"

Visitor — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:54:37 +0000

By The Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability

"Editing a book that the author called his 'magnum opus' explains my short fingernails" - Catherine Kudlick, Longmore Institute Director and Editor, Telethons

Last week, the Longmore Institute teamed up with the J. Paul Leonard Library and Friends of the Library to celebrate the long-awaited launch of Telethons: Spectacle, Disability, and the Business of Charity. Telethons editor (and Longmore Institute Director) Catherine Kudlick addresses the crowd.

Telethons was the culmination of many years of research throughout Paul's career. After his death, colleagues felt a 'call to arms' to get the work published. As editor Catherine Kudlick explains, "Paul's book was a big dare.... He dared me and others to open the door for lasting change." Paul dared people throughout his entire career as a scholar, colleague, and friend. As fellow history teacher and friend Trevor Getz recalled, "Paul was an amazing mentor, especially if he knew you had an ego to match his...[he] was about scholarship that made a difference to people and the societies they lived in." (Read the complete transcript of Trevor's thoughts here) Archivist Meredith Eliassen shares some insight on Paul as a scholar with selections from the Paul K. Longmore Papers, housed in the Library Special Collections and Archives.

As both an academic and activist, his work in Telethons continues to break new ground in Disability Studies, boldly proclaiming that "Telethons needed disabled people more than disabled people needed telethons." But the launch of Telethons has also given us the opportunity to bring together Paul's colleagues, students, and friends for some perspective on the man behind the book. Missed the event? Watch it here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRlooSPGrW0] Join us for our next launch event on Wed. February 24th at 5pm at the Ed Roberts Campus for a book reading and reflections from some of Paul's Bay Area activist friends. Gene Chelberg offers opening remarks and introduces Provost Sue Rosser.

*Thank you to Ned Fielden for the photographs! Watch the event here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRlooSPGrW0]

Tags:

Catherine Kudlick

disability studies

Gene Chelberg

J. Paul Leonard Library

Some Thoughts on Paul's Legacy

Visitor — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:37:15 +0000

Trevor Getz is a Professor in the SFSU History Department, member of the Longmore Institute Advisory Council, and friend and colleague of Paul Longmore. At the book launch party for Paul Longmore's magnum opus Telethons: Spectacle, Disability, and the Business of Charity, he shared some thoughts on Paul's impact and legacy, both as an individual and scholar.

By: Trevor Getz

Paul Longmore was, in fact, my very good friend. But I’ll admit we didn’t often talk about telethons.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’d tell me sometimes about his next book – this one in front of you -- and about his feelings about MDA and Jerry Lewis. But Paul was a fascinating and unorthodox scholar, and his work took him many different places. He was also an amazingly patient mentor -- once he knew that I had an ego that could match his, -- and I learned a lot from him. Fellow historian and close friend Trevor Getz shares some of Paul's antics.

He taught me about identity, and especially about the nation and how nationalism worked. I quickly found out that asking him to read a chapter about nation-building in West Africa meant that I would be barraged with two million suggestions about readings I should have done and concepts I had never heard of before.

He taught me about culture, and the way it operated. Not in theory, but in actuality, through observable events and shifting attitudes, both across the country and on campus, and on the TV….

He taught me about power. Paul could exert an amazing amount of ‘soft’ power just by showing up in some VPs office and chatting with the administrative assistants, or stopping a Dean to chat on the quad, and

He taught me about money, both in starting a departmental ‘development’ committee when most of us were allergic to the idea, and in ridiculing the stupid laws that restricted his ability to profit from his scholarship, a righteous anger that eventually became the act of rebellion in which he burned his book.

In a way, all of these matters are in the book that’s in front of you. What’s amazing is the way that it weaves together culture, identity, the operation of power, and the corrupting flows of money into a story that – ultimately – is about people and their subjugation to a system that claimed to be about them, but that was really about their objectification. In the end, that’s what Paul ‘s scholarship was about – people, the lives they lived, the societies they created, the experiences they felt.

It’s amazing, how many things Paul still teaches me, even now that he is no longer with us.

Tags: