ISBN: 978-3-9827721-2-7
14,8 x 21 cm (softcover)
24 pages
Published: May 2026

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J. LOGAN SMILGES is associate professor of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia, where they write and teach in queer/trans disability studies, rhetorical studies, and the history of medicine. They are the author of Crip Negativity (2023) and Queer Silence: On Disability and Rhetorical Absence (2022).



Bad Listeners
by J. Logan Smilges

 J. Logan Smilges’s essay “Bad Listeners” argues that traditional ideas about “good listening” in feminist and rhetorical theory can exclude neurodivergent and disabled people. Smilges challenges the assumption that ethical, caring, or politically responsible people should always be able and willing to listen. This leads to an important reframing of “bad listening” as an issue of access. Sometimes people cannot listen in the expected way, at the expected time, or in the expected setting. For neurodivergent people, listening may need to happen differently: later, in another format, or in shorter and safer ways. The essay uses the concept of “crip time” to argue that communication should adapt to people’s bodily and mental needs rather than forcing everyone into rigid norms. “Bad Listeners” offers an important challenge to listening studies, reminding of the attentional politics and ethical challenges listening carries.