Tom Shakespeare
Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet (born 11 May 1966), better
known as Tom Shakespeare, is a sociologist. He has achondroplasia, a
form of dwarfism in which the body is perfectly formed but the bones
initially modelled in cartilage, the long bones of the arms and legs,
do not grow long enough. Velázquez painted a fine portrait of a man
with this condition which hangs in the Prado in Madrid. Shakespeare was
educated at Radley and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and gained a MPhil
degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1991. Whilst a student, he
featured in a television documentary about his restricted growth, along
with his father, Sir William Geoffrey Shakespeare, a prominent medical
practitioner. Shakespeare then lectured in sociology at the University
of Sunderland from 1993 and returned to King's College in 1995 to
receive his PhD degree. His father died in 1996 and Shakespeare
inherited his baronetcy, but does not use the title. He is also a
campaigner for disability rights, a writer on disability, genetics and
bio-ethics and was the co-author of The Sexual Politics of Disability
(1996 - ISBN 0-304-33329-8). He studied political science at Cambridge
University. As a radical student, he supported liberation movements
such as feminism, anti-racism and lesbian and gay rights. During his
M-Phil, he wrote a book about the politics of disability. He also
authored the book Disability Rights and Wrongs published by Routledge
in 2006 and co-authored (Edited) Arguing About Disability published in
2009 by Routledge. He was formerly a research fellow at Newcastle
University. He currently works for the World Health Organization, in
Geneva.
