Now Booking: 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 to share, discuss and advise on research methodologies in disability studies. The symposium is open to students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, to explore a range of innovative and creative methodologies within the growing field of disability studies.

This is a free event, however for catering purposes please confirm your attendance via the registration form which can be found here.

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.

The student symposium will be held at Liverpool Hope University on Wednesday 22nd 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 29th April 2016 to12000935@hope.ac.uk Presenters will be informed via email by 22^nd May 2016.

For more information please follow this link https://studentsymposiumliverpoolhope.wordpress.com/

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

Reminder: Next DRF Seminar Tues. 10th Feb. 2015

The details for the next DRF seminar are as follows:

Date: Tuesday 10^th February, 2-4, Room 10111

Slot 1: Harriet Cameron, University of Sheffield, UK: Dyslexia, Discourse and Higher Education

Under UK law dyslexia is a disability and the label entitles students within higher education to certain supports. However, students with the label I have come across during my work as a specialist tutor conceptualise dyslexia in different ways.  Some say they feel they are just ‘stupid’, some consider dyslexia a medical condition, some feel that dyslexia is a positive, and others feel they are simply different, part of a neuro-diverse population.  My position is that the ways dyslexia is constructed in any particular interaction, or in any wider text, have implications for how students with the label construct their identities (and others’ identities) as academic learners. In turn, I believe certain ways of being and doing are opened up or closed down by the ‘subject positions’ (Davies & Harre, 2001) these constructions offer. Today I will discuss a discourse analysis of two focus group conversations between dyslexic university students and myself. In this session I will talk about the different subject positions participants took up or offered, the wider discourses they drew upon, and the implications of these for ‘being’ and identity within the higher education context.  While this study has been undertaken in the UK, the implications are relevant to our understandings of learning and identity across the western world where individualistic and meritocratic ideologies pervade educational discourse. In helping students, teachers, and other educational practitioners to become more aware of the discursive production of ‘facts’ like dyslexia, the hope is that they will become better able to critically interrogate their own learning identities and have more awareness of the ways they position themselves and others.

• Davies,B., and Harre,R. (2001) Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves. Reading 19 in in Wetherell,M., Taylor,S., Yates,S. (Eds.) (2001) Discourse, Theory and Practice: A Reader. 261-271. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications/ The Open University.  

Slot 2: Teodor Mladenov, Kings College London, UK: Disability in state socialism and postsocialism

 Abstract:  Seminal works in disability studies (Finkelstein, 1980; Oliver, 1990; Stone, 1984) have shown that the analysis of large-scale transformations – such as the one from feudalism to industrial capitalism – is indispensable for understanding and critique of present-day constructions of disability. The transition from state socialism to postsocialist capitalism in Eastern Europe invites similar considerations – the genealogy of disability policy in postsocialist countries necessarily leads back to their socialist past (Philips, 2009). Proceeding from these presumptions, in this presentation I will first outline some political-economic features of state socialism that underpinned its productivism. Productivism will be regarded as a mechanism (‘assemblage’) that reduces humans to resources utilisable for the enhancement of productive output. I will then explore some ways in which productivism has shaped disability policy in the socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc. Finally, I will look at the ways in which this state socialist legacy has influenced present-day disability policy in the postsocialist region. I will welcome reflections on similarities and differences with ‘advanced liberal’ (Rose, 1996) societies such as the UK.

• Finkelstein, V. (1980) Attitudes and Disabled People: Issues for Discussion. New York: World Rehabilitation Fund.
•  Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement. London: Macmillan.
•  Phillips, S. D. (2009) ‘“There are no invalids in the USSR!”: A missing Soviet chapter in the new disability history’, Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3, n.p.
•  Rose, N. (1996) ‘Governing “advanced” liberal democracies’, in A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds) Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government. London: UCL Press, pp. 37-64.
• Stone, D. (1984) The Disabled State. London: Macmillan.

Next DRF Seminar: Wednesday 25^th March, 1-3, Room 10111 ~ with Kirsty Liddiard (University of Sheffield) and Nick Hodge (Sheffield Hallam University).

Postcolonial Studies Association Convention (7th–9th Sept. 2015: University of Leicester, UK)

The first Postcolonial Studies Association Convention aims to be as interdisciplinary as possible – we wondered if any of our Disability Studies friends were interested in attending…

Postcolonial Studies Association Convention at the University of Leicester on 7th–9th September 2015

The first PSA convention will be held at the University of Leicester (UK), from 7 to 9 September 2015. Contributions from academics and postgraduates investigating any area of postcolonialism from any disciplinary, cross- or interdisciplinary perspective are warmly invited.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Professor Paul Gilroy (King’s College London)
• Professor John McLeod (University of Leeds)
• (Other keynotes to be confirmed)

The 2015 PSA Convention Special Topic is Diasporas

Proposals for panels and papers on the theme of diasporas will be particularly welcome. Movement —be it of culture, capital or the human movement involved in colonialism, slavery, indentured labour, or postcolonial migration to former colonial metropoli— has always been central to postcolonial studies.

Diaspora has been one of the key concepts of postcolonial studies within this context of individual and collective journeys. Within contemporary analysis, diasporas have tended to be explored in terms of ethnicity, race, nationality, and even religion. However, diaspora has sometimes been accused of perpetuating histories of colonial inequality by failing to differentiate between precarious migration motivated by exploitation and the more economically privileged transnational movements of the global bourgeoisie. The study of human movement during colonial and postcolonial times has taken a number of shapes across the humanities and social sciences through the study of diaspora, migration, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and globalisation. It is this theme of movement that the conference special topic will address. What social, historical and linguistic configurations does the study of diasporas privilege? Which ones does it ignore? How has diaspora come to include different motivations of migration beyond the more familiar ones of ethnic discrimination and economic hardship? How has the diasporic experience been represented and studied?

The convention will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing & its ongoing partnership with the PSA.

Format: Individual 20-min. academic papers, panels, performances or poster presentations.

Please send abstracts of individual presentations (250 words) or panels of 3 (500 words) with a brief biographical note of participants (2-3 sentences) to psa2015convention@gmail.com

Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2015. Decisions communicated by the end of March 2015.

Reminder: Next DRF Seminar – Weds. 10th December 2014: 10am-12pm

Details for the next DRF seminar are below. All welcome. And if you’d like to present at an upcoming seminar, please do let us know – available slots can be seen here.

Wednesday 10^th December, 10am-12pm, Room 100009 (Arundel Building, Sheffield Hallam University)

Slot 1: Joanna Baker-Rogers: Asperger Syndrome – experiencing the phenomenon of friendship (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Abstract: As the mother of a son with the label of Asperger Syndrome (AS), I have observed my son enjoying friendships with peers both on the autism spectrum and non-disabled. These observations would appear to challenge the diagnostic view that persons with AS do not enjoy friendship. Instead they prefer solitary activities and being alone. This conceptualisation of the autism spectrum embodies the medical model of disability and in-particular the Triad of Impairments (Wing 1995). The literature is dominated by understandings of friendship of non-disabled people (O’Dell, Bertildotter Rosqvist and Brownlow (2013). There is little consideration of potential autistic friendships from a social model of disability perspective. Instead the focus is on the failure of persons with AS to aspire to and maintain friendships with the aim of improving themselves to experience friendship from a non-disabled perspective.  I have come to question whether concepts of friendship are being imposed upon persons with AS that have little meaning for them, are disabling and embody the concepts of normalcy (Abberley 1991) and ableism (Campbell 2012).

The medical model of disability view of persons with AS not being interested in friendship needs to be problematised. This presentation of my research critiques these misconceptions that have emerged as a result of social barriers in society. My research aims to capture the different and valid lived experience of friendship for persons with AS that challenges the conceptualisation of the autism spectrum as a tragedy for the individual and their family.

Slot 2: Chris Hill: Special School Sporting Experiences: Listening to Student Researchers Labelled with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Abstract: TBC.

Event: Diagnosis in educational and psychological practice: An interdisciplinary conversation (Jan 2014: Sheffield)

You are invited to register for an exciting, cross-disciplinary one-day conference:

Diagnosis in educational and psychological practice: an interdisciplinary conversation

…which will be held at The University of Sheffield on Monday 12th January 2015, 9:30am – 4:30pm.

The event has been organised through collaboration between Tony Williams (Educational Psychology), Harriet Cameron (Specialist Teaching in SpLD/ Dyslexia) and Alex Young (Clinical Psychology), and as such it brings together a range of perspectives on the uses and abuses of diagnosis from related, but often very separate fields of practice in education and psychology.

The main purpose of this event is to provide a critical space for attendees to explore some of the different ways in which diagnosis is experienced, to reflect upon the medicalisation of labelling in education and psychology, and to critically interrogate the assumptions they might have in this area. Through these conversations, it is hoped that we will address some of the challenges and paradoxes we face around medicalisation in the practice of specialist teaching and psychology, and that we will leave the conference with a greater awareness of the roles we play in (re)producing particular concepts of difference and difficulty.

If you are a specialist teacher, a mental health specialist, a researcher in a related field, a user of specialist SpLD or mental health services, an educational psychologist, a student in a related discipline, a clinical psychologist, a needs assessor, or a disability advisor, this conference is likely to be of interest to you.

The draft programme is attached. Precise titles for talks and workshops will be confirmed nearer the time.

To book your place, please go to http://onlineshop.shef.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=10&catid=119&prodid=333

You will need the password ‘diagnosis’ when purchasing your ticket. The tickets should be available now, but please try a little later if you find they are not yet up. There may be a short delay.

The cost is £20/ £15 concessions, and includes refreshments and lunch. The venue is fully accessible. Please let us know if you have any additional requirements.

We expect this event to be very popular, so if you would like to attend, please book your place as soon as possible.

For more information: contact Harriet Cameron on h.cameron@sheffield.ac.uk

 

Pacific Rim International Conference (May, 2015: Hawaii, USA)

from… the organisers of the Pacific Rim International Conference (May, 2015: Hawaii, USA)

 

“For our 31st edition, Pac Rim is merging and partnering with another conference, so there is sure to be plenty of surprises! 

The Pacific Rim International Conference, considered one of the most ‘diverse gatherings’ in the world, encourages and respects voices from “diverse” perspective across numerous areas, including: voices from persons representing all disability areas; experiences of family members and supporters across all disability and diversity areas; responsiveness to diverse cultural and language differences; evidence of researchers and academics studying diversity and disability; stories of persons providing powerful lessons; examples of program providers, and; action plans to meet human and social needs in a globalized world.

In 2015, new topic areas will promote thoughtful discussion and suggest new ways to integrate education, technology, advocacy, activism and interdisciplinary research. We all strive to strengthen communities and enhance the lives of all human beings. Together, we can harness the tremendous synergy generated by the intermingling and cross-fertilization of diverse perspectives, and ‘spread the word’ as we continue our professional and personal life journey.

Take your first steps to the islands by visiting the website: www.pacrim.hawaii.edu.

We welcome your ideas, suggestions and enthusiasm. Then join us in Waikiki, Hawaii, May 18 & 19, 2015.”

 

Event Announcement: “The Radicalisation of Care: Practices, Politics and Infrastructures” (Nov, 2014: Spain)

Title: “The Radicalisation of Care: Practices, Politics and Infrastructures” 

Dates: 19th – 20th November 2014

Venue: William J. Mitchell room (7th floor), MediaTIC building. Roc Boronat, 117, Barcelona, Spain.

Topic: The concept of radicalisation is usually associated to a process by which groups or individuals come to adopt increasingly extreme or immoderate positions, ideals or aspirations. But it also speaks of the attempts at introducing fundamental or far-reaching changes in a certain area or field. Drawing on this second meaning, in this workshop we aim to explore a series of trends that lead us to think that we might be facing a process of radicalisation of care.

Organising team: Daniel López, Israel Rodríguez Giralt & Tomás Sánchez Criado. Open University of Catalonia

Speakers: Madeleine Akrich, Blanca Callén, Jérôme Denis & David Pontille, Rob Imrie, Joanna Latimer, Daniel López, Andrew Power, Tomás Sánchez Criado, Vololona Rabeharisoa, Israel Rodríguez Giralt, Celia Roberts, Manuel Tironi & Myriam Winance.

Graphic report by Carla Boserman

Sponsored by: LaCaixa Internationalisation at Home 2014.

The event is free, although registration is needed.

All information available here: http://radicare.net

‪#‎radicare

CFP: 10th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

10th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

Start Date: 20 July 2015 – End Date: 22 July 2015

Venue: Whitelands College, University of Roehampton, London, UK

The goal of this interdisciplinary conference is to present and discuss the state-of-the-art information on various aspects of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. The conference will be of interest to those who are doing research with young people and to those working within child and adolescent mental health, education, social work and youth justice systems.

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Graeme Fairchild (University of Southampton): “Using a family design to study risk and resilience factors in the aetiology of Conduct Disorder”

Dr Eamon McCrory (University College London): “Biological embedding: How childhood maltreatment gets under the skin”

Dr Alice Gregory (Goldsmiths College, University of London): “The genetics of sleep disorders”

Dr Paul G Ramchandani (Imperial College London): “Getting in early to prevent mental health problems in children”

Dr Luci Wiggs (Oxford Brookes University): “Management of sleep disturbance in young people”

Prof Cecilia A Essau (University of Roehampton): “Mental health problems across cultures: Implications for intervention”

Call for Papers and Research Symposia

Abstracts for oral and poster presentations are warmly invited on any of the following themes:

(1) Assessment, prevention, and treatment of child and adolescent psychopathology;

(2) General issues (risk and protective factors, use of mental health services, different approaches to mental health services delivery);

(3) Cross cultural issues in child and adolescent psychopathology.

 

Abstract Submission Deadline: 15^th May 2015

 

More Information: To find out more about the conference and to submit your abstract and register for the conference, please go to

http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Research-Centres/Centre-for-Applied-Research-and-Assessment-in-Child-and-Adolescent-Wellbeing/Child-and-Adolescent-Psychopathology-Conference/

or contact: Professor Cecilia A. Essau

Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton, Whitelands College, Holybourne Avenue, London SW15 4JD, UK

Email: C.Essau@roehampton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8392 3647

Fax: +44 (0) 20 8392 3527

CFP: Rethinking Disability on Screen: A One-Day Interdisciplinary Symposium (May, 2014)

Rethinking Disability on Screen: A One-Day Interdisciplinary Symposium

Date: Thursday 14th May, 2015, 

Venue: Humanities Research Centre, University of York

Website: rethinkingdisabilityonscreen.com

Twitter: @rdos2015

*** Deadline for abstracts: 16th January 2015 ***

 Keynote speakers: Stuart Murray, Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film and Director of the Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities and Justin Edgar, Filmmaker and Founder and Creative Director of 104 Films (www.104films.com)

Cinema’s visual interest in disability registered almost from the moment of its invention. The historical tendencies of fiction film to show disabled subjects as objects of pity or comedy, as ‘monstrous’, as ‘resentful’ or as segregated from mainstream society have been critically documented from the 1980s onwards, but more recently, a number of international films featuring disability – Les Intouchables, Amour, Rust and Bone, The Sessions – have enjoyed both critical and commercial success.

Alongside TV coverage of the London-hosted 2012 Paralympics on Channel 4, UK terrestrial programming has addressed disability across a range of genres, from drama (Best of Men, BBC2) through comedy-sitcom (Derek, Channel 4) and social documentary (The Undateables, Bodyshock, Channel 4), to mixed receptions. Such developments call for a re-examination of representations of disability on screen and their contribution to ongoing cultural, social, economic and political debates surrounding disability. This one-day interdisciplinary symposium at the University of York aims to unite postgraduates, early career researchers, established scholars and industry practitioners working across a range of fields and disciplines – including film studies, history, literature, cultural studies, gender studies, sociology and health sciences – to explore the ways in which cinema and television have reflected, and shaped, subjective and objective experiences of impairment and disability throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

We invite contributions in the form of 20-minute papers on a range of topics and genres, encompassing both fiction and non-fiction materials, as well as analyses of disability in production and reception contexts. The event will be underpinned by a number of key critical questions:

 

 – How visible is disability throughout the history of cinema and television? In what screen contexts is disability present? When has it been occluded, marginalised or suppressed?

 – What specific forms of disability has cinema embraced? Which has it neglected or rejected?

 – To what extent have cinema and television engaged with the emotional, physical and social implications of impairment and disability?

 – What forms of spectatorship do screen representations of disability construct/ presume?

 – How have representations of disability on screen changed over time? How much progress has been made, and what further directions should this take?

 

Our aims are to facilitate constructive, interdisciplinary conversations on existing scholarship, to discuss new avenues of enquiry and to promote interest and growth in this important but relatively under-studied area.

Presentation topics could include, but are not restricted to:

– disability, sexuality and romance

– disability and exceptionality

– isolation and integration

– dependence, independence, interdependence

– disability and genre (comedy, satire, romance, melodrama, thriller, documentary  soap, reality, children’s film and TV, animation, science-fiction, period drama, medical film)

– disability and film-making (able-bodied and disabled actors, directors and producers, disability activism in the entertainment industry)

– commercials, advertising and promotional material

– spectatorship and reception

– discursive exchanges between the fields of disability studies and film studies, past, present and future.

 

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be emailed to rethinkingdisabilityonscreen@gmail.com by Friday 16th January, together with a brief biographical note (100-150 words).

 

A number of travel bursaries, primarily for postgraduate students and ECRs from the White Rose Consortium and the Northern Network for Medical Humanities (nnmh.org.uk), may be available. Details of how to apply will be announced in due course.