3. Stuttering Gain with Christopher Constantino

What does it mean to be proud of one’s stutter? What does one gain from their stutter? Hosts Patrick, Maria, and Josh are joined by Chris Constantino to discuss his radical essay Stuttering Gain and dive into the world of stuttering pride. In this episode, they talk about the unique experience of stuttering and how we can find benefit in stuttering, as opposed to only thinking about stuttering as a lack of fluency. While the experience of stuttering is difficult, Chris argues that this doesn’t mean there is nothing we have to gain or be proud of. 

Links

• Stuttering Gain by Chris Constantino (2016)
• Difference in Itself’: Validating Disabled People's Lived Experience by James Overboe (1999)
• The Question of Access: Disability, Space, Meaning by Tanya Titchkosky (2011)
• Honest Speech by Erin Shick
  • Two access options: Youtube (no text version but video has captions, better audio); Voicemail Poems (with text, lower audio quality)
• Stammering Pride and Prejudice edited by Patrick Campbell, Christopher Constantino, Sam Simpson (2019)
• Forced Intimacy: An Ableist Norm by Mia Mingus (2017)
• Access Intimacy: The Missing Link by Mia Mingus (2011)
• Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error by Michael Davidson (2022)
• The Case for Conserving Disability by Rosemary Garland-Thomson (2012)
• The Gift of Stuttering by Ian Wilkie for TEDxFrensham (2022)
• On the Negative Possibility of Suffering: Adorno, Feminist Philosophy, and the Transfigured Crip To Come by Kelly Fritsch (2013)
• Conor Foran
• JJJJJerome Ellis 

Chris Constantino is a stutterer and speech language pathologist at Florida State University who teaches stuttering and counselling to graduate students, and supervises therapy. Chris researches how we can make the experience of stuttering better.