Fitter, Happier

Lois Peters Agnew is professor in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition at Syracuse University. She is author of Thomas De Quincey: British Rhetoric’s Romantic Turn and Outward, Visible Propriety: Stoic Philosophy and Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorics, and numerous journal articles.

"A smart, honest, and compelling book. Fitter, Happier, is 'critical' but in a capacious and open-minded way. There is an ethics of care in the approach."—Jay Dolmage is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo and the founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. He is the author of Disability Rhetoric, Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education and Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability."The unpredictability of its occurrence and the predictability of its terminal trajectory have long left humanity lost for words on cancer. The 20th century cancer rhetoric has created more visibility for cancer and yet made it more invisible with talk of causes, prevention, and cure. Lois Peters Agnew’s meticulous analysis of personal accounts and institutional artifacts will help both scholars and the public get their bearings on disability at a time when discourses on eugenics nurture dreams of living fitter and happier."—Suresh Canagarajah is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Applied Linguistics, and Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University. His latest publication is Language Incompetence: Learning to Communicate through Cancer, Disability, and Anomalous Embodiment