In this volume, the author brings disability studies and rhetoric together to analyze the role of the body in rhetoric and how it shapes communication, arguing that rhetoric has ignored its role and that this is reinforced by fears about imperfection, the boundaries around bodies, and the strange bodies of others. He considers the role of disability in rhetorical history, particularly the classical world, and uses the concept of metis, or cunning and adaptive intelligence, as a way to recognize that all rhetoric is embodied and to show how embodiment forms and transforms in terms of norms of ability. He employs disability studies to reveal stereotypes about disability that shape cultural stories and to critique views about the phenomenology of embodiment, and proposes new models and metaphors for the body's attachment, reliance, and vulnerabilities and adaptations, focusing on the meaning of bodily difference. He discusses the function of norms, means, and ideals as rhetorical categories that structure understanding of the body and its means of persuasion and the myths that shape cultural understandings of disability, as well as the debate in disability studies about the construction of disability. He also analyzes Helene Cixous's use of the Medusa myths, myths of the Egyptian goddess Maat, trickster figures across cultures, and Gloria Anzaldua's stories of mestizaje, and applies concepts to contemporary culture in the movie The King's Speech. Annotation ©2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)