Irving Zola

Who was Irving Zola?

Irving Kenneth Zola was an internationally-known activist and writer in the fields of medical sociology and disability rights. He was a founding member of the Society for Disability Studies and the first editor of Disability Studies Quarterly. He also was a founding member and counselor at the Boston Self-Help Center.

His best-known book, which first came out in 1982, is Missing Pieces: A Chronicle of Living With a Disability. It has recently been reissued.

The Dr. Irving Kenneth Zola Collection, a repository of most of Zola's works, can be found at The Samuel Gridley Howe Library at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Zola had taught at Brandeis since 1963.