CFP: ‘Disability, Global Conflicts and Crises’ Special Issue of Disability and Society

As the world’s leading journal in disability studies, Disability and Society would like to explore new challenges and forms of resistance associated with global conflicts and crises faced by disabled people in the 21^st century. So, the theme for this Special Issue is deepening global conflicts and crises and how these impact on disabled people’s lives.

These conflicts and crises are many and complex. Papers could explore any of the following issues and debates:

• Economic challenges – financial, industrial and agrarian
• Widening inequality
• Deepening poverty
• New demographics
• Bioethics
• Conflict and war
• Social revolutions and transformations
• Environmental challenges
• Upheavals in culture and belief
• Approaches to theorizing disability in such challenging contexts

The above list is not meant to be exhaustive and we encourage contributors to be creative in their interpretation of topics.  This Special Issue will be published in 2013.

Submissions should be made online at the Disability & Society ScholarOne Manuscript site .  New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre.  Maximum word length is 7,000 words (including bibliography). 

The final deadline for receipt of papers is 1^st August 2012.  No papers will be considered after this date.

For further advice on the submission procedure go to the Disability and Society site here.

Latest ‘Super Double’ Issue of RDS Out Now!

The latest issue of the Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal is now out. This super double issue (Volume 7, Issues 3&4) features a forum on employment edited by Stephanie Patterson and Pamela Block, as well as additional research articles, creative works, book reviews, and disability studies dissertation abstracts. A

The electronic version of RDS is free online.

Enjoy!!!

Table of Contents…

Editorial: Learning Stuff We Don’t Know (Megan Conway, Ph.D., Managing Editor)

Forum: Disability and Employment

• Introduction (Guest Editors Stephanie Patterson & Pamela Block, Stony Brook University, New York USA)
• Deserving of Charity or Deserving of Better? The Continuing Legacy of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act for Britain’s Deaf Population (Martin Atherton, University of Central Lancashire, Preston UK)
• “Useless”: Disability, Slave Labor, and Contradiction on Antebellum Southern Plantations (Dea H. Boster, Columbus State Community College, Ohio USA)
• Electioneering and Activism at the Turn of the Century and the Politics of Disablement: The Legacy of E. T. Kingsley (1856-1929) (Ravi A. Malhotra, University of Ottawa, Ontario Canada)
• Disability and Work in Colonial Ghana: Social Orthopaedics and the Rehabilitation of Disabled African Soldiers during World War Two (Jeff D. Grischow, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario Canada)

Research Articles

• Disability Studies Pedagogy: Engaging Dissonance and Meaning Making (Kathleen M Hulgin, College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, Ohio USA)
• Susan O’Connor, Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA (E. F. Fitch, University of Cincinnati Clermont College, Cincinnati, Ohio USA and Margaret Gutsell, College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, Ohio USA)
• Disability in the Far East: Japan’s Social Transformation in Perceptions of People with Disabilities (Miho Iwakuma, Kyoto University, Japan)
• Paulo Freire, Disability, and Sociological Consciousness in a Southern Metropolis: The Knoxville Mayor’s Council on Disability Issues (Matthew Randall West, The University of Alabama, Birmingham USA)
• Infusing Disability Culture into Multicultural Courses in Counselor Education Programs (Sheri Ann Rawlings & Terri Longhurst, University of Wyoming USA)

Creative Work

• Ethnographing the Garden (Rama Cousik, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), Indiana USA)

Book and Media Reviews

• Moon on the Meadow: Collected Poems (Reviewed by Aimée Gramblin)
• Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essay on Mass Media (Reviewed by Steven E. Brown)
• The Power to Spring Up: Postsecondary Education Opportunities for Students with Significant Disabilities (Reviewed by Frank R. Rusch)

Dissertation Abstracts

• Disability Studies Dissertation Abstracts (Compiled by Jonathon Erlen, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA)

CFP: 8th Annual CDSSA ‘Graduate Student Conference’ (April 2012, Canada)

Call for Papers and Registration Information

York University’s Critical Disability Studies Student Association (CDSSA) will be holding its 8th annual graduate student conference in April 2012 (precise date to be confirmed) at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  The conference aims to showcase graduate students across North America and their work relating to themes and issues within the scope of Critical Disability Studies.

The event is interdisciplinary, and so possible topics can include but are not limited to the following:

• Disability advocacy
• Critical theory and disability: feminism, post-modernism, Marxism, etc.
• History of disability: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Victorian Age, Industrial Age, etc.
• Law and public policy, and disability
• Qualitative and quantitative research pertaining to disability
• Education and disability
• Culture: disability-related literature and film analysis
• Employment, market, workforce, and income security in relation to disability
• Disability-related topics in social sciences: psychology, sociology, geography, political science
• Assessment of accessibility accommodations
• Technology and disability

Paper presentations must be no longer than 20 minutes, which equates to approximately 10-15 pages, with 12 point Times New Roman font, double spaced, and 1 inch margins.  The CDSSA adjudication committee will review abstracts that are 150-200 words in length.  Authors might be asked to present their work as posters instead of as paper presentations.  Abstracts must be anonymous.  The text of the email must include the author’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information, the title of the work, and preferred presentation format (paper or poster). 

Applicants must send their abstracts as attachments in Microsoft Word format to the following email address: cds_grad@yorku.ca

Submission deadline is 15th January 2012.

Presenters must register for the event.  Registration deadline is 1st April 2012 and is free. 

For those requiring accommodations registration deadline is 1st March 2012. 

In order to register, please send an email to cds_grad@yorku.ca with the following information:

• Name and number of guests
• Contact information
• Dietary restrictions (if applicable)
• Accessibility accommodations (if applicable)

Please note that accommodations will be provided only upon request by the registration deadline.

For more information and updates, please click here.

Journal of Developmental Disability: Call for Media Review Submissions

In 2008, the Journal of Developmental Disability (JODD) dedicated a media column to critically examine representations of developmental disability.  The column includes reviews of both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, encompassing submissions addressing Internet, online websites, virtual forums, computer applications,  computer games and gaming sites, Youtube sites,  independent and popular film and television programs, and print media. Through this column, we seek to redress the absence of analyses attending to people labeled with developmental disabilities and to interrogate current and emerging representations.

We welcome submissions that take up media and developmental disability in three distinct ways: 

1. Specific work review: We accept reviews of specific media portrayals of developmental disability, including books, artwork, television programs, films, games, websites, Youtube videos and other specific examples of media content.

2. Media trends: We are interested in identifying and documenting emerging discourses in developmental disability in the media. This may include a sharp rise in public discussions of developmental disability as evidenced, for example, through a spate of films, news reports, books, promotional campaigns and so forth addressing either a general or specific issue pertaining to developmental disabilities or people who are so labeled.  Contributors are invited to trace and comment upon these trends and the significance they may have both for people labeled with developmental disabilities and the way developmental disability, normalcy, reason and personhood are conceptualized.

3. Emergence of new media forms: Media has dramatically shifted its form and reach with successive technological advances. The emergence of new media technologies has broadened the opportunities for knowledge production, reproduction, dissemination and consumption. Contributors are invited to consider the symbolic and material implications of these innovations for people with developmental disabilities.

Contributors are encouraged to address the following questions in their submissions:

• How does the reviewed subject create new framings and understandings of developmental disability?
• How does the reviewed subject include or influence the voices of people with developmental disability?
• How does the reviewed subject create opportunities for addressing the intersections of disability with race, class, age, gender and sexual orientation?

Who may submit a review?

We welcome contributions from those whose lives and work intersect with developmental disabilities in diverse ways. We encourage contributions not only from academics at any stage, but also from people labeled as having developmental disabilities, their family members, friends and practitioners. Collaborative reviews between academic and community partners, family members, community groups, self advocates and other forms of team contributions are very welcome.

Submissions should be between 2000 to 3000 words, word-processed, double-spaced, using APA citation format. Please see www.oadd.org (follow the links to JODD) for more details about the formatting requirements. 

For more information please contact Esther Ignagni at eignagni@ryerson.ca or Ann Fudge Schormans at fschorm@mcmaster.ca

Press Release: Disabled children do matter

Many disabled children fail to reach their full potential because they continue to be marginalised in schools, health and social care, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Go to ‘Disabled children do matter’ to view the full release.