Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life

“The book is a must-read, with appeal for both general academic and disability studies audiences, and is designed to have maximum impact within university culture. The readability of Price’s prose makes hers an important book to put in the hands of university administrators and teachers of all stripes.”
―Stephanie Kerschbaum, Disability Studies Quarterly

— Stephanie Kerschbaum, University Of Delaware ― Disability Studies Quarterly

“Margaret Price’s brave, controversial argument about educational inclusiveness needs to be discussed by anyone who teaches, is concerned about educational processes and academic culture, wants to understand some of their unintended consequences, or thinks about constructions of mental illness or cognitive disability.”
―Carol Schilling, NYU School of Medicine’s Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database

— Carol Schilling ― Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database

“This is the book about mental health and higher education.”
–Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Vitae, by the Chronicle for Higher Education

— Katie Rose Guest Pryal ― Chronicle Vitae

“Price’s book was simultaneously humbling for me to read and empowering. Although I felt challenged by her analysis of classrooms that do not accommodate, recognize, or configure themselves to work for and with students with mental disabilities, she also provides sections of the book that guide a motivated reader to consider alternate classroom practices and arrangements.”
―Corrine C. Bertram, H-Net Disability

— Corrine Bertram (Shippensburg University ― H-Net

“Price’s audience is not bound to disability scholars alone. Anyone interested in understanding their students and improving the working lives of their colleagues can learn from her research.”
―Christina Fisanick, Composition Forum

— Christina Fisanick ― Composition Forum

Winner: Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 2013 Outstanding Book Award

― CCCC Outstanding Book Award

“A groundbreaking and deeply compelling study of the fraught intersection between mental disability and higher education in the United States, Mad at School poses a radical challenge to some of the most deeply rooted assumptions about the academy and those welcomed within its walls. Price’s perspective is drawn from disability studies and rhetoric/composition, and she is clearly writing for these audiences. However, Mad at School welcomes all disciplinary comers to its pages: field-specific terminology is carefully defined and disciplinary concerns are contextualized and explained. Price’s beautiful prose draws the reader through the book; it is rare indeed to encounter an academic book as elegantly written as it is theoretically rich… Mad at School should interest anyone who cares about the future of higher education… ‘I wrote this book,’ Price memorably writes at the end of the introduction, “because I could not go on any longer without writing it” (24). Academics committed to access and equality in higher education should not go any longer without listening to what Mad at School has to say.” ―Hypatia

— Jenell Johnson ― Hypatia

Margaret Price is Associate Professor of English at Spelman College.