The Right to Maim

Like Puar, Kafer bridges the gap between disability studies and queer theory, challenging normative temporalities and advocating for a more inclusive, intersectional future. This book is essential for those interested in the political and theoretical frameworks that shape how we understand bodies and identities.

This collection provides the foundational theoretical texts that Puar builds upon in her analysis of state power and bodily regulation. It is a critical resource for readers who want to deepen their understanding of the biopolitical mechanisms that determine who is allowed to live and who is made to die.

This is Puar's seminal work that introduces the concept of 'homonationalism,' providing the crucial theoretical precursor to the arguments in 'The Right to Maim.' Readers who appreciate Puar's dense, rigorous style and her ability to deconstruct state power will find this essential reading.

Gupta extends Foucault's theories into the postcolonial context, echoing Puar's interest in how state power operates globally to control populations. This book offers a similar academic rigor and focus on how power structures intersect with development and disability.

While Puar focuses on the systemic 'maiming' by the state, Piepzna-Samarasinha offers a vital, grounded perspective on how communities build resistance through disability justice. It provides a necessary, hopeful counterpoint to the bleak analysis of biopolitics.

Butler's work on performativity and precarity shares a deep intellectual lineage with Puar's critique of how bodies are valued or discarded by the state. This book is perfect for readers who enjoy high-level critical theory that interrogates the relationship between the individual body and political power.

This collection challenges the moral imperative of 'health' in modern society, mirroring Puar's skepticism toward how capacity and debility are used to categorize citizens. It is an accessible yet rigorous academic critique of the medicalization of social life.

As the primary architect of the biopolitics framework that Puar adapts, Foucault is required reading for anyone engaging with 'The Right to Maim.' This text provides the essential vocabulary for understanding how power is not just repressive, but productive of the very bodies it seeks to control.

This book provides the material, historical evidence of the 'maiming' and containment of disabled bodies that Puar theorizes. Readers will appreciate the concrete, intersectional analysis of how the prison-industrial complex functions as a tool of disability management.

Mbembe's theory of 'necropolitics'—the power to dictate who may live and who must die—is the direct foundation for Puar's concept of the 'right to maim.' This is a short but dense, essential text for understanding the darker mechanisms of sovereignty and state violence.