Chris Constantino
Christopher Constantino lives in Tallahassee with his wife, Megan, and sons, Augustine and Sebastian. He is a speech-language pathologist and assistant professor at Florida State University. He works clinically with people who stutter, teaches classes on stuttering and counseling, and researches ways to improve the experience of stuttering. He co-edited the book Stammering Pride & Prejudice. Chris enjoys riding his bicycle. His favorite ice cream flavor is mint with Oreos.
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Chris’s files
To suggest that the stutterer is simply repressed by power (be it societal or bodily) is to deny his agency, his ability to resist power.
To suggest that the stutterer is simply repressed by power (be it societal or bodily) is to deny his agency, his ability to resist power.
Rethinking covert stuttering (Constantino, Manning, Nordstrom, 2017)
- How do people who pass as fluent constitute themselves?
- Expected a straightforward study of ableism and repression.
- Got stories of resistance and agency.
- Participants did not see why stuttering was any more authentic than fluency.
- Passing is not repressed stuttering but a unique form of stuttering constituted by specific practices of self.
- Passing resists both how biology suggests a stutterer must talk and what privileges society says stutterers should have access to.
Rethinking covert stuttering (Constantino, Manning, Nordstrom, 2017)
- How do people who pass as fluent constitute themselves?
- Expected a straightforward study of ableism and repression.
- Got stories of resistance and agency.
- Participants did not see why stuttering was any more authentic than fluency.
- Passing is not repressed stuttering but a unique form of stuttering constituted by specific practices of self.
- Passing resists both how biology suggests a stutterer must talk and what privileges society says stutterers should have access to.
In our zeal to resist medical conceptions of stuttering do we just substitute one normalizing litmus test for another?
By rejecting fluency in and of itself or by asking whether forms of knowledge are consistent with our favorite model of disability, what ways of being do we disqualify?
I’m not comfortable telling another stutterer how to think/feel about their stuttering.
Stutterers are always already resisting how they are constituted.
How are they currently resisting societal demands for fluency?
How are they currently resisting their body’s demands for effortful speech?
Rather than see therapy as a means to liberate the self (be it fluent or stuttered) I suggest we see it as an exploration of the stutterer’s resistance and agency.
We explore how the stutterer has been constituted not to determine who they must be but to determine who they do not have to be.
We explore how they got here but leave where they’re going up to them.
In my clinical experience, most stutterers value both an increase in their ability to resist societal pressures to speak fluently and an increase in fluency, or at least easier stuttering.
In our zeal to resist medical conceptions of stuttering do we just substitute one normalizing litmus test for another?
By rejecting fluency in and of itself or by asking whether forms of knowledge are consistent with our favorite model of disability, what ways of being do we disqualify?
I’m not comfortable telling another stutterer how to think/feel about their stuttering.
Stutterers are always already resisting how they are constituted.
How are they currently resisting societal demands for fluency?
How are they currently resisting their body’s demands for effortful speech?
Rather than see therapy as a means to liberate the self (be it fluent or stuttered) I suggest we see it as an exploration of the stutterer’s resistance and agency.
We explore how the stutterer has been constituted not to determine who they must be but to determine who they do not have to be.
We explore how they got here but leave where they’re going up to them.
In my clinical experience, most stutterers value both an increase in their ability to resist societal pressures to speak fluently and an increase in fluency, or at least easier stuttering.
- Fluent ↔︎ Stuttered
- Medical models ↔︎ Social models
- Speech restructuring therapies ↔︎ Neurodiversity
<hr>
Authentic self as fluent
Authentic self is repressed by bodily power (pathology). We can liberate the self by restoring normal functioning.
- Behavioral therapy.
- Medication.
- Surgery.
<hr>
Authentic self as stuttered
Authentic self is repressed by social power (ableism). We can liberate the self by rejecting fluency.
- Stuttering pride.
- Activism.
- Creative expression.
- Identity is always relative.
<hr>
Identity is always relative
There is no true self to be emancipated, there is only different selves constituted through power relations.
I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.
— Lorde (1984)
<hr>
A rejection of authenticity does not necessarily lead to determinism.
We are free in so far as we continuously rebelling against the ways in which we are already defined, categorized, and classified.
- Fluent ↔︎ Stuttered
- Medical models ↔︎ Social models
- Speech restructuring therapies ↔︎ Neurodiversity
<hr>
Authentic self as fluent
Authentic self is repressed by bodily power (pathology). We can liberate the self by restoring normal functioning.
- Behavioral therapy.
- Medication.
- Surgery.
<hr>
Authentic self as stuttered
Authentic self is repressed by social power (ableism). We can liberate the self by rejecting fluency.
- Stuttering pride.
- Activism.
- Creative expression.
- Identity is always relative.
<hr>
Identity is always relative
There is no true self to be emancipated, there is only different selves constituted through power relations.
I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.
— Lorde (1984)
<hr>
A rejection of authenticity does not necessarily lead to determinism.
We are free in so far as we continuously rebelling against the ways in which we are already defined, categorized, and classified.