A 2017 book that is part of a sample reading list for an upcoming Princeton University humanities course has drawn charges of antisemitic blood libels. It also raises broad questions about academic freedom and what kinds of scholarship are appropriate for classroom study.
The controversy surrounds The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, by Jasbir Puar, a professor of women’s and gender studies and director of the graduate program in women’s and gender studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Duke University Press, which published the book, refers to it as a “pathbreaking” study of disability, which draws “on a stunning array of theoretical and methodological frameworks.”
