The Rhetorical Stakes of Cure

This review of Eli Clare's "Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure" (2017) and Eunjung Kim's "Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea" (2017) shows how both Clare and Kim critique the politics of cure in the U.S. and Korea. Specifically, these texts reveal the (at times) violent ways that cure has been forced on disabled bodies, and unpack longstanding debates within the political, cultural, and medical sectors about eliminating disability at all costs, and refusing cure. Although both works are oriented towards the field of disability studies, this review highlights the intersectional aspects of both texts and the concrete, practical ways that rhetoric and composition scholars and teachers can benefit from this discourse.