In the journal article “Ways of Staring”, Thompson attempts to understand staring as a particular type of visual and relational function between human beings, which attempts to make sense of something in our field of vision. When we merely look at something, this can be purely unconscious, or without interest, it could be the result of boredom, or a gesture of which we are not aware. Staring, in contrast, indicates some type of attraction, something that has captured our attention. In Thompson’s view, therefore, staring is always related to an event, to something that is new, a break from the mundane and the routine in our everyday lives. When we stare we are challenged by something that disrupts the monotonic rhythm of our surroundings. Staring in this sense is about making sense of something new, a response to the shock of this disruption, potentially trying to fit it into a narrative of our understanding or trying to map an epistemology of what can be known about what we are staring at.

Thompson, however, also makes a distinction within forms of staring, trying to make what she calls a taxonomy of staring, where what she terms an “engaged looking” has a very distinct function. This is because staring can also be a type of awe, perhaps even a type of negative reaction to the viewer, who is upset at this sudden disruption of her routine. Instead, engaged looking is ultimately positive, it is a seeking to come to terms with that which is being observed, but not in a unilateral fashion, but through a type of dialogue, the invitation to the formation of a relationship. One can already detect this meaning in Thompson’s shift from calling the concept “engaged looking” instead of “engaged staring”, staring potentially carrying negative connotations. The one who is doing the engaged looking is in a way captivated by what she sees, she wants to know more about this, she wants to learn, and perhaps even wants to integrate what she sees into her own life. The engaged form of staring therefore is basically an attempt to understand what one sees, to understand Otherness. This is because to capture the attention of the starer, what is needed is first is some type of difference; but this difference, as Thompson underlines, is then treated in an “often benevolent” manner. Engaged looking is about recoginizing this new interruption in our lives as something that has an intrinsic value, we want to establish a relationship with it, we want not only to understand the challenge of knowledge it presents to us as Thompson says, but we want in a way to try and shape our own preconceptions and thoughts in a way that invites this novelty into our lives, learning about what we look at, inviting it into our world, and also hopefully being invited into the world of what we look at engagingly.

E.T. Russian’s work in the Ring of Fire serves as a prototypical example of what Thompson describes with this distinction. Moreover, what becomes clear in Russian’s version of Thompson’s staring taxonomy is its underlying ethical characteristics. Much of Russian’s anthology is dedicated to the question of different forms of bodies, above all the bodies of the disabled. Here, almost everyone has had some type of experience, where they have seen a disabled body: the difference which this body registers in our lives creates what Thompson calls staring. However, the entire approach of Russian’s work is to move beyond staring and instead, he looks at the disabled body precisely from the perspective of the engaged look. The disabled body is something that captivates the look, that makes us want to learn more about bodies in general. It is ethical because it uses the disabled body to start a dialogue about what actually a body is, and what constitutes the differences in bodies, and, perhaps most importantly, it also makes “abled” bodies look different. Russian’s engaged looking is a type of exchange of points of view: the engaged look at the difference of the disabled body also becomes an engaged look at the “abled body.” A perfect example of this is Russian’s juxtaposition between abled bodies and disabled bodies. For example, the two page spread which features wheelchair dancing, or those in wheelchairs attract an engaged look because the novelty as Thompson would say which they create. But this is also accompanied by Russian’s engaged look to able bodies, for example, the pages dedicated to the “anatomy of my legs.” This is a new ethical opportunity: the disabled body has now become an opportunity to reflect on an abled body, on the strangeness of any single body, its mechanistic function. Russian breaks down the anatomy of the leg and it itself looks now like something novel, an apparently perfectly functioning “normal” leg now appearing on the page as something esoteric, something strange, even though it is the norm. The engaged look on the disabled body is ethical because it now forces an engaged look of oneself: what becomes a register of novelty and difference, an attempt to understand, goes beyond an attempt to understand what one engagingly looks at, but also oneself. What is being looked at thus forces us to change our perception of ourselves, to re-evaluate our own choices, lives, bodies, and this is thus the formation of an ethical dialogue, a give and take of mutual learning.