Letters with Smokie: Blindness, Guide Dogs & More Than Human Questions

Joeita speaks with Rod Michalko about his book "Letters with Smokie" discussing blindness and what it can reveal about the relationship between humans and animals.

About “Letters with Smokie”

From University of Manitoba Press:

Leave it to a dog to put the “human” back in “humanities”

In September 2020, Rod Michalko wrote to friend and colleague Dan Goodley, congratulating him on the release of his latest book, Disability and Other Human Questions. Joking that his late guide dog, Smokie, had taken offense to the suggestion that disability was purely a human question, Michalko shared a few thoughts on behalf of his dog. When Goodley wrote back—to Smokie—so began an epistolic exchange that would continue for the next seven months.

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world and the realities of lockdown-imposed isolation set in, the Smokie letters provided the friends a space in which to come together in a lively exploration of human-animal relationships and to interrogate disability as disruption, disturbance, and art. Just as he did in life, Smokie guides. In these pages, he offers wisdom about the world, love, friendship, and even The Beatles. His canine observations of human experience provide an avenue into some of the ways blindness might be reconceptualized and “befriended.”

Uninhibited by the trappings of traditional academic inquiry, Michalko and Goodley are unleashed, free to wander, to wonder, and to provoke within the bonds of trust and respect. Funny and thoughtful, the result is a refreshing exploration and re-evaluation of learned cultural misunderstandings of disability.

Highlights:

• Opening Remarks on Guide Dogs (00:00)
• Introducing Rod Michalko (01:03)
• Who is Smokie and Why is Smokie Writing Letters? (01:38)
• How Did this Correspondence Between Friends Evolve into a Book? (03:00)
• Was it Challenging to Adopt Smokie’s Perspective? (04:06)
• How Can Animals Deepen Our Understanding of Blindness and Disability? (05:06)
• Moving Towards a Different Concept of Blindness (07:17)
• First Day Out with a Guide Dog (08:55)
• Appreciating the Blurriness of Life (10:37)
• Guide Dogs as Experts on Blindness (12:58)
• Shifting One’s Vantage Point (14:50)
• Rethinking Human-Animal Relationships (16:48)
• How Does Journeying with a Guide Dog Change Your Perspective on the Design of Physical Spaces? (18:51)
• Disability and Disrupting Normalcy? (21:07)
• Why is the Theme of Community So Important? (23:11)
• The Personal Impact of Revisiting Guide Dog Relationship (24:53)
• More Letters with Smokie? (26:47)
• Show Close (27:32)

Guest Bio:

Rod Michalko is a retired professor from the University of Toronto where he taught disability studies. His current writing, both fiction and non-fiction, stems from his experience of blindness.

“Letters with Smokie” was co-written by Dan Goodley, Professor of Disability Studies and Education at the University of Sheffield. His Previous books include Disability and Other Human Questions (Emerald, 2020) and Disability Studies (second edition, Sage, 2016).

Links

Learn more about “Letters with Smokie” on AMI Audiobook Review

"Letters with Smokie" Website

About The Pulse

On The Pulse, host Joeita Gupta brings us closer to issues impacting the disability community across Canada.

Joeita Gupta has nurtured a life-long dream to work in radio! She's blind, moved to Toronto in 2004 and got her start in radio at CKLN, 88.1 FM in Toronto. A former co-host of AMI-audio's Live from Studio 5, Joeita also works full-time at a nonprofit in Toronto, specializing in housing/tenant rights.

Find Joeita on Twitter: @JoeitaGupta

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