College professor Paul Longmore, author and intrepid anti assisted suicide and disability rights activist, has died. From the press release:
We are deeply saddened to convey the news that Dr. Paul Longmore, Professor of History at San Francisco State and an active member of the Californians Against Assisted Suicide coalition, passed away yesterday. Paul, a man with a significant disability, was a brilliant leader and luminary in the disability rights movement and, in particular, in the struggle against assisted suicide. He leaves a legacy of very significant contributions, both activist and scholarly, including several books, including Why I Burned My Book, and Other Essays on Disability which has some excellent chapters on the assisted suicide issue. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Longmore’s family during this difficult time. Paul was a true asset in the fight against assisted suicide and he will be dearly missed. Memorial plans will be announced in the coming days.
I worked closely with Paul in my early days of anti assisted suicide advocacy. We did editorial meetings together and shared many a dais. He was brilliant, intrepid, and righteous. He will indeed be missed.
Update: Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet has more details.
August 10th, 2010 | 3:33 pm
God Bless his soul and my sympathy also goes out to his family and friends.
I never really knew the man and so I think that it would be wrong for me to write some of the reality comedy that I was planning on writing at this moment in time.
Until next time Wesley,
Peace
August 10th, 2010 | 3:51 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
August 10th, 2010 | 3:59 pm
I had the opportunity to meet this remarkable man just once, but the impression he made is with me today. My son, a young man with a disability, decided to major in history at SF State after meeting Paul. I will miss knowing that he is over at State doing what he loved and did so well. His spirit lives on in the work we do. My heartfelt thoughts are with his family and loved ones.
Louise
August 10th, 2010 | 4:00 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Stand In The Gap. Stand In The Gap said: BIOETHICS WATCH => Paul Longmore, RIP http://dlvr.it/3dFkv #912 #ocra #ucot #rs #tcot #tlot #sgp [...]
August 10th, 2010 | 4:41 pm
Paul was one of the brilliant minds and ironclad hearts of the disability movement. I can’t convey my sadness at his passing. Paul Longmore understood that disability was a distinct culture with issues of assimilation and identity, rebellion and yearning that add to as well as mirror the great American narratives of liberty. Longmore was right about so much just as he was ahead of the intellectual parade in the disability rights movement. But unlike most academics, he never wanted simply to be right. He once told me that for him liberty was to roll into a room and be understood by everyone. Paul did not live to see it but someday those rooms will be everywhere, largely because of him. I’ll miss you Paul Longmore.
August 10th, 2010 | 8:54 pm
I was his student for 3 years in the graduate program at SFSU. I just loved him. His breadth of knowledge, compassion and humor made him my favorite. His death is such a loss. I only hope I can be half the teacher and person that he was.
I’ll miss you, Prof. Longmore! And thanks for everything.
August 11th, 2010 | 5:24 am
I had the honor of working with Paul Longmore for 11 years at SFSU. Brilliant, compassionate, hilarious, uncompromising, deeply rooted in the truth of his own experience, dazzlingly insightful, he always made my day when he stopped by my office to chat.
When we last spoke a few weeks ago, he was nearing completion of his long-awaited book on telethons, a three year–and in many ways lifelong–labor of love, and was in the process of negotiating its publication with Oxford University Press. Like so much of his work, the book is a meticulously researched and deeply provocative treatment of the social construction of disability in the US, astonishing in the depth and clarity of its analysis.
During this time of grief, nothing comforts me more than the notion that all of us who love and respect Paul’s work will remain in dialogue with him beyond the grave, not only through his enduring influence on American culture, but also through this beautiful and brilliant new book that represents the culmination of his life’s work.
August 11th, 2010 | 10:58 am
I am deeply saddened by this even though I never met Paul. I have read many of his contributions to the field of disability studies and truly looked up to him as a scholar. I pray that his work will live on in the minds and hearts of those who knew him and the scholars and others who will continue to benefit from his work.
August 11th, 2010 | 12:33 pm
Back in the early 1990s I was a graduate student in history at Stanford, struggling to find a good topic for a research paper– and, as graduate students do, struggling to find my way. Paul, a visiting professor at the time, shared a newspaper article with me — an interview with a young woman in the mid-1930s, in which she described her sit-ins at WPA headquarters. What followed was a close collaboration with Paul that lasted long after my time in graduate school, as we researched and wrote an article on the League of the Physically Handicapped — this incredible group of men and women who, finding themselves labeled “unemployable” by 1930s employment agencies, challenged the discriminatory policies and predominant societal views of disability in their day.
Paul was an exceptional teacher and friend. He provided me a crash course in disability studies — suggesting readings and sharing his own personal experiences with the patience, generosity and eloquence that he seemed to bring to all of his encounters. He was fearless, engaging and unequivocating — all the while maintaining a good historian’s sense of balance and proportion. Balance and proportion — but only where balance and proportion was due.
But forget all of that for a minute… What I *most* remember about Paul — more than the history, or politics, or teaching — is how incredibly quick witted and downright hilarious he could be. No discussion was complete without a clever pun, a self-deprecating aside, or a bawdy joke. Paul was the real deal — and really, *really* fun to be around. He was a crack-up, and I’ll miss him.
August 13th, 2010 | 3:28 am
I feel fortunate to have known Paul and was there when he made his statement to burn his book.
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