Disability Studies Student Society Symposium (Liverpool Hope University, UK: June, 2016)

The Disability Studies Student Society Symposium at Liverpool Hope University hopes to bring together students across the North-West (and beyond) to share, discuss and advise on research methodologies in disability studies.

We invite submissions of abstracts of up to 300 words for paper presentations that detail methodological approaches to research projects, both those that have been completed and those that are currently underway. We are not expecting polished papers, rather we want to create a safe and open space to share ideas, concerns and questions.

The symposium is open to students, both undergraduate and postgraduate. We are interested in hearing about a range of innovative and creative methodologies within the growing field of disability studies.

The student symposium will be held at Liverpool Hope University on Wednesday 22^nd June 2016. A full schedule for the symposium will be updated and available shortly as will be details for registration.

Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted for consideration by 22^nd April 2016 to 12000935@hope.ac.uk. Presenters will be informed via email by 22^nd May 2016.

For more information regarding submission, or general information concerning the symposium please contact: Leah Burch – Email: 12000935@hope.ac.uk

Anyone for Hawaii? CFP: Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity 2016

The 32nd Annual Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity will be held on 25-26 April 2016, at the Hawai’i Convention Center in Honolulu, USA.

This year they are featuring topic areas such as Putting Research into Practice and Disability Studies.

The Call for Proposals is NOW OPEN.

For more information, please visit www.pacrim.hawaii.edu, or feel free to e-mail at prinfo@hawaii.edu, or call at 1-808-956-7539.

CFP: Special Issue of African American Review, Blackness and Disability

In 2006, the late Christopher M. Bell lamented “the failure of Disability Studies to engage issues of race and ethnicity in a substantive capacity.” In recent years, scholars like Michelle Jarman, Jennifer James, Cynthia Wu, Nirmalla Ervelles, and Terry Rowden have filled this lacuna with essays and books of their own. Though it may no longer be necessary to think in terms of failure, we still have a significant amount of work to do in exploring the scholarly terrain where disability and race intersect. In an effort to continue this conversation, this special issue of <em “mso-bidi-font-style:=”” normal”=””>African American Review seeks essays that probe the connections between blackness and disability and think beyond the idea that one is simply like the other.

We define disability as the existing social, legal, and cultural conditions that make the world un-navegable for people with impairments, drawing a distinction between material realities and the consequences of social (in)action. We recognize the historical relationship between racializing and disabling discourses as complex and dynamic. In this issue, we aim to challenge, expose, and analyze the way these discourses shape literary and cultural production.

Centralizing disability in discussions of blackness revamps our understanding of what blackness was, is, and could be. In terms of history, it asks us to recast Harriet Tubman as mentally disabled (based on her head injury), and by extension the conception of slaves as extremely abled. The use of amputation as a punishment for seeking freedom challenges us to consider that blackness and disability are simultaneously constructed as anti-thetical to freedom itself and dangerous to the nation-state. If we are to think about how black citizens must traverse structural inequality regularly, how might that be complicated by an inability to get inside the actual structures one needs to enter? How might the back and side ramp entrances to government buildings create a permanent but vexed easement into institutions for black disabled folk? In terms of scholarly work, performance studies and cultural studies seek to reimagine the black body as outside the strictures placed upon it, but generally do so in abled terms. In short, I ask a question similar to Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith’s inquiry for their collection on black feminism: if all the disabled are white, and all the blacks are abled, what are those of us in the middle? This special issue would be groundbreaking because it asks for nothing less than a retooling of the very terms of blackness and disability. To view the two together is to disrupt and change both.

We welcome essays that examine the wide range of possible literary and cultural texts available though we are most interested in work that explains how discourses of disability and blackness transform each other. Our primary goal is to expand the repertoire of critical approaches to texts (broadly defined) that deal with blackness and disability.

Potential Topics:

Slavery and the Politics of Disability

Memoir/Autobiography

Afrofuturism/Black Speculative Fiction

The Graphic Novel

Disability and Black Queer Culture

Black Disabled Characters in Film & Visual Culture

Differential Politics of Disability (how disability impacts the lives of people of different ethnicities and classes differently)

Disability and the Black Arts

Abstracts of no more than 500 words and a brief CV should be sent to Theri’ Pickens c/o Intellectual.Insurrection@gmail.com by June 30, 2015. The invitation for full papers will be sent out on September 1, 2015 and completed essays will be expected by February 1, 2016.

CFP: Disability in World Film Contexts (edited volume)

The edited volume titled ‘Disability in World Film Contexts’ has received initial interest from Yoram Allon of renowned film publisher Wallflower Press (now part of Columbia UP).

Contributions are invited in the form of chapters that focus on an individual film or films from a specific national, regional or linguistic context. Such contributions should be of one of two types: 1) essays in the film studies or humanities traditions that give equal weight to the formal properties of cinema and the theme of disability understood in a broadly social context, or 2) anthropological, sociological or geographical approaches to disability as portrayed on film giving more weight to extra-filmic context.

Titles and 200-250-word abstracts should be submitted by 1 September 2014 by email to Benjamin Fraser: fraserb2010@gmail.com (Benjamin Fraser is Professor and Chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures at East Carolina University, author of Disability Studies and Spanish Culture [Liverpool UP, 2013] and editor/translator of Deaf History and Culture in Spain [Gallaudet UP, 2009]).

If selected for the volume, complete chapters of 7,000-10,000 words including notes and references will be due 1 July 2015. Send all correspondence to fraserb2010@gmail.com.

More Info: http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/56966

CFP: Special Edition of Journal of Popular Television on ‘Disability and Television’

Call for Papers: Disability and Television

Special Edition of Journal of Popular Television

Guest edited by Rebecca Mallett (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) and Brett Mills (University of East Anglia, UK)

Debates about disability – whether related to production and industry, content and representation, or audiences and consumption – have been largely ignored in the study of television, and this special edition of Journal of Popular Television aims to encourage the field to engage in this increasingly significant topic. We intend to provide a space to explore the contributions television studies and disability studies can make to one another, as areas of enquiry but also as fields engaged in the socio-political world.

We acknowledge the wide range of ways in which ‘disability’ has been defined and welcome submissions that engage with the complexity of the term and the uses to which it is put. Likewise we are interested in ‘television’ in its broadest sense, whether fictional or non-fictional, from docudramas and comedy to news and sports across all platforms.

We are keen for the edition to include as wide a range of voices, formats and approaches as possible, so while the ‘traditional’ academic article is welcomed, we also encourage other formats, such as personal reflections, treatises and manifestos or anything else that may be relevant and appropriate. Submission lengths may also be variable, so shorter and longer pieces are also invited.

We therefore invite expressions of interest from those interested in contributing to the special edition. This is due to be published in Autumn 2015, and submissions would be due 28 February 2015.

If you’re interested in contributing please contact Rebecca Mallett (r.mallett@shu.ac.uk) and Brett Mills (brett.mills@uea.ac.uk) by 8th September 2014 with an outline of your intended contribution; formal abstracts are not necessary at this stage. If you’d like to talk through any initial ideas with either or both of us before this date, please feel free to get in touch.

Reminder: Normalcy 2014 Abstract Deadline Approaching

This is just a quick reminder about 5th Annual International Conference ***Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane***: More Questions of the Human to be held in July, 2014 in Sheffield, UK.

Abstracts of no more than 200 words (with a short bio) should be submitted by 1st February 2014 to the normalcy2014@gmail.com

More info (including how to book a place) can be found here.

It is always a great few days of support and discussion – we have amazing keynotes lined up and a fascinating theme. What’s not to love??

CFP: Disability and Society Special Issue 2015 ~ Disability: Who counts? What counts?

Call For Papers: Disability and Society Special Issue 2015

Theme: Disability:  Who counts?  What counts?

The next Special Issue of Disability & Society will bring together cutting-edge discussion on questions of how changing sociopolitical and cultural relations are redefining disability and seeks to shape future directions for Disability Studies. Papers will consider new agendas for disability which are emerging as the 21^st Century moves on, exploring ideas about categories of disability, disturbing categories, narrowing of the disability category, expanding of the disability category and interpretations of disability in cross-cultural and temporal contexts. The transformation of disability research and political action and their role in challenging conceptions of disability will also be of interest.

We welcome ccontributions on a wide range of themes. The list below is not meant to be exhaustive and we encourage creative interpretation of topics which fit with matters of ‘who counts?’ and ‘what counts?’ in contemporary studies of disability and society.

Topics you may wish to address include:

• Mad Studies
• Neoliberalism
• Faith
• Conflict
• Medicine
• Neurodiversity
• Childhood and Identity
• Poverty
• Work
• Disability and Development
• Ageing

This Special Issue will be published in 2015.

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 31^st August 2014.  No papers will be considered after this date.

For further advice on the submission procedure go to: Disability and Society at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09687599.asp

Call for Ideas: Gender and Disability: Asking Difficult Questions (10th May 2014, Sheffield, UK)

Announcing Gender and Disability: Asking Difficult Questions

Saturday 10th May 2014, Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences (ICOSS), University of Sheffield

We’re calling for activists, artists, academics and practitioners to get involved in a day of discussions on the theme of gender and dis/ability. We welcome ideas for the sharing of skills and stories, art, performances, poetry, workshops, round-table discussions, papers and presentations.

The event aims to create a space for conversations and debate between communities who share an interest in gender and disability.

Some ideas for topics/themes:

(Dis)ableism, discrimination, exclusion and (in)accessibility
‘Abnormal’, ‘Normal’ and Normalcy
Activism and protest (disability, feminist, LGBT, ‘race’, queer)
Austerity/welfare cuts
Body image, fetishisation, and the medicalization of bodies and minds
Desire, Sexuality, intimacy and relationships
Freakery, the abject and the politics of disgust
Health and Illness
Identities and identity politics
Life-course and ageing
Mental health and mad pride
Post-humanism
Queer and crip histories
Sex, sex educators and sex workers

Send us your ideas (around 200 words or half a page of bullet points) by 24th February 2014 to gender.disability@shef.ac.uk.

This will be a free event. Food will be available to buy at the venue. We want to make this event as accessible as possible, to inform us of any particular access requirements please email gender.disability@shef.ac.uk by 19th April 2014. For further information please contact gender.disability@shef.ac.uk. To book a place please go to: http://genderanddisability.wordpress.com.

Twitter: @GenDisability

An event hosted by the Disability Research Forum, Sheffield Hallam University and the Gender Research Network, University of Sheffield

Please distribute widely! Link to flyer here: Gender And Disability Call for Ideas

CFP: Alternative Psychiatric Narratives Conference (May 2014, UK)

Call for Papers: Alternative Psychiatric Narratives

When: Friday 16th + Saturday 17th May 2014

Where: Birkbeck College, University of London

Chair: Professor Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck

In recent years, historians of psychiatry have heeded Roy Porter’s call to produce psychiatric histories from the patient’s point of view. Studies have moved on from focusing on medical discourse to investigating the diversity of the patient population, their varied experiences, and their pathways to and from psychiatric institutions. Only just beginning, however, is work which pays attention to alternative narratives of psychiatry: individuals and accounts that have been excluded or overlooked in the midst of this focus upon doctor and patient. These include the experiences of those located outside formal psychiatric spaces and relationships, from families and non-medical staff, to activists and campaigners, as well as narratives taking unconventional forms or found in unexpected places, offering alternative readings of sites, spaces, or texts, or challenging the very ways in which psychiatric narratives could or should be expressed and used.

This conference seeks to contribute to the development of these alternative narratives of psychiatry (in the broadest sense of the term) by exploring the voices and experiences of those involved in the non-institutional, non-formal aspects of psychiatry, and by investigating new ways to access all aspects of psychiatric experience, from the early modern period to today. This will be a space to discuss wide ranging (alternative) narratives of psychiatry, representations of psychiatry over time, and the methods and meanings behind this work from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Proposals for 20 minute papers touching on any aspects of alternative psychiatric narratives are welcomed from postgraduate and early career researchers across the humanities and social sciences.

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

• Alternative methodologies (such as oral history, social geography, ethnography, and more)
• Histories of familial and community care
• Representations of psychiatry in literature, theatre, art, music and the media
• Disability theories and histories in relation to the history of psychiatry and mental health
• Reforms, campaigns, and histories of activism and the psychiatric survivor movement
• Alternative views of traditional psychiatric sites such as asylums, hospitals, clinics
• Developments, experiences and perceptions of auxiliary and support staff
• Questions of space, time, culture and locality
• The gendering of psychiatric spaces, diagnoses and treatments
• Changing therapeutic identities over time
• Race and ethnicity, and other hidden dimensions of psychiatric history
• The classic sick role: its history, consequences and alternatives
• Medical texts and their role in shaping psychiatric stories
• The problems with psychiatric narratives: authenticity and authority, uses and abuses

Those interested in presenting a paper should email a short proposal (max. 300 words) to AltPsychiatricNarratives@gmail.com by Monday 3rd March 2014

Subject to funding, we hope that some travel expenses will be available for speakers. Members of the Society for the Social History of Medicine will be able to apply for travel bursaries from the Society; visit www.sshm.org/content/conference-bursaries-students  for more details.

Further details and information regarding registration will be at www.altpsychiatricnarratives.wordpress.com

CFP: Knots: An Undergraduate Journal of Disability Studies

Knots: An Undergraduate Journal of Disability Studies

Call For Papers

***SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 30th, 2014***

The Equity Studies program, New College, University of Toronto, invites submissions for the inaugural edition of Knots: An Undergraduate Journal of Disability Studies. Knots is a peer-reviewed journal that will highlight high-calibre work by undergraduate students  and undergraduate alumni that moves beyond normative biomedical conceptions of disability and contributes to the development and growth of Disability Studies as a field.

The editors are open to the widest array of discussion of relevant themes and topics that contribute to Disability Studies and the continued examination and deconstruction of ableism. Submissions in the forms of essays, book and film reviews, and art pieces are welcome. Suggested themes might include, but are by no means limited to:

• intersectional analyses of sexuality/gender/class/race & disability
• crip community, activism, allyship and disability rights;
• representations, interpretations of disability in everyday life; in arts, athletics, and performance;
• disability in local and global contexts; interactions in the medical and rehabilitative communities;
• education; learning and developmental disabilities;
• physical disability; psychiatric disability; M/madness;
• eugenics; disability history; disability rights; employment;
• representations in pop culture; representation and/or expression through the arts; etc.

 

Requirements and Reviewing:  Submissions should be original and unpublished with an emphasis on completed (rather than intended) works. Essays should be 2500 words maximum, excluding bibliography; book and film reviews should be 1000 words maximum; art pieces should be accompanied by an artists’ statement not in excess of 500 words. Manuscripts should be fully and correctly cited in APA style.

Submissions will be evaluated on both significance and relevance to the field of Disability Studies as well as technical strength and clarity, and should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract. Submitted work will be subject to peer-review; successfully reviewed entries will be returned to submitters for edits before being approved for publication. Once the editing period has come to a close, we will not accept any changes to an accepted paper.

 

Submission Procedure & Information:  The submission process is electronic: all manuscript submissions can be made online to knots.contact@gmail.com  by no later than January 30th, 2013. The author/s name and the title of work both should appear in the subject line of the email; the full manuscript should be attached as a PDF file to the editors. Any questions regarding content, submission, or accessibility requests should be directed to co-editor Sarah Hoedlmoser (sarah.hoedlmoser@gmail.com).