The English Department is thrilled to congratulate Associate Professor Margaret Price, who has been awarded the Alison Piepmeier Book Prize from the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) for her new book, Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life (Duke University Press, 2024) and will be honored at the 2024 NWSA conference later this week. 

In Crip Spacetime, Price pulls back the curtain on the longstanding systemic ableism within academia. In an industry that not only comes with high productivity demands, but also is competitive by nature, Price develops a theory of “crip spacetime,” arguing that “the pains and injustices encountered by academia’s disabled workers result in their living and working in realities different from nondisabled colleagues: a unique experience of space, time, and being.” Through survey data and interviews, Price shows that the individual accommodations that are often considered “best practice” by universities tend to work against the accessibility needs of disabled academics and argues for a more collectivist mode of care and accountability. In commenting on award submissions, one reviewer described Crip Spacetime as “a landmark text in disability studies, documenting the experiences of disabled faculty navigating structural ableism in academia.” 

The Alison Piepmeier Book Prize is awarded by the National Women’s Studies Association for a groundbreaking monograph in women, gender, and sexuality studies that makes significant contributions to feminist disability studies scholarship.” The award comes with a $1,000 prize and honors Piepmeier, a cornerstone in NWSA leadership whose scholarship focused on the intersection of feminist and disability studies. Previous winners include Arseli Dokumaci (Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds; Duke UP 2023), and Ohio State alumna Ally Day (The Political Economy of Stigma: HIV, Memoir, Medicine, and Crip Positionalities; Ohio State UP 2021).

Price reflects, “The National Women’s Studies Association is close to my heart. This organization has been led by Black women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and disabled people for decades, and their work in activism and access eclipses most other academic organizations I know. As a person who has been queer and disabled for more than 40 years, I’m overjoyed that Crip Spacetime has made a difference for this extraordinary community of scholar / activists. Our next national meeting starts in less than a week, and the calls to action are already ringing.” 

Congratulations to Professor Price!