Please join us at the international Society for Disability Studies Conference, hosted for the third consecutive year by Ohio State.
This year's conference is themed "Troubling Binaries of Academics and Activism" and will feature in-depth workshops, concurrent panels and a keynote with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, who will present “Cripping Survival, Dreaming Disability Justice Futures.”
The SDS Conference is brought to you virtually by Ohio State’s Transformative Access Project (TAP). Together, SDS and TAP are excited to explore access as a collective, pedagogical and community-based process. Our workshops were not originally planned with a global pandemic in mind, but current events make their topics all the more important and our move online allows us to include as many attendees as possible.
Please continue reading for more details about these upcoming events. For information about how to access workshops using Zoom, please view the attached document.
Schedule of Events
Session 1
"Building Institutional Capacity with Accountability to Communities" with Lezlie Frye
When: 9 - 10:30 a.m. (Eastern)
Where: Join at https://osu.zoom.us/j/362785875
This workshop will explore what it looks and feels like to build institutional capacity for the intersectional study of disability in ways that practice real accountability to the movements for social justice that inform this work. What kinds of institutional and community partnerships support the development of critical disability studies? What obstacles remain? How can our programs sustain political and pedagogical commitments that approximate radical forms of collective access?
"Cross-Disability Communication" with Devva Kasnitz and Sara Acevedo
When: 9 - 10:30 a.m. (Eastern)
Where: Join at https://osu.zoom.us/j/419348350
(Description to come.)
Session 2
Transformations in Pedagogy and Access" with Ryann Patrus and Maurice Stevens
When: 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (Eastern)
Where: Join at https://osu.zoom.us/j/389869764
This presentation will examine collective access as a teaching practice, one that seeks to promote equity within a learning community. We ask, what possibilities are generated when access is centered? Through process, design, and a flexible container, we consider what transformations might be possible for individuals in the space/embodiment and offer strategies to facilitate these transformations. We consider the potential for cripping the flow of time and pacing in the teaching/learning space and what can be generated when the temporal flow is restructured and we attend to embodiment. Our stake is in transforming the institutional structures within which we all are operating and resisting the rigid structures that make academic spaces hostile for marginalized bodyminds.
“Centering Difference in Health Equity Research” with Nic Flores and Michele Battle-Fisher
When: 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (eastern)
Where: Join at https://osu.zoom.us/j/594374505
The facilitators will lead a discussion that highlights the measures and efforts taken by health care organizations to transform what accessibility means as it relates to social markers of difference (race, class, gender, sexuality and ability). In particular, this discussion explores the work being conducted by a local health care organization on accessibility and inclusion within the health sector in central Ohio. The facilitators will also lead a collaborative exercise on how participants may assess and adopt changes to their own practices and programs by drawing on personal experiences and knowledge.
"Strong Communities Make Police Obsolete: Organizing Against State Violence in Central Ohio" with Dkéama Alexis, Mia Santiago and Charlie Stewart
When: 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (Eastern)
Where: Join at https://osu.zoom.us/j/500994441
The city of Columbus has a violent history of targeting qtpoc, especially Black queer and trans people, with state violence. At this panel we will examine this history as well strategies for preventing state intervention. We will center discussion around how to be inclusive for events and spaces, and why it’s important specifically for our community that we create and keep spaces that protect against policing. As members of BQIC (Black Queer & Intersectional Collective) and the CFC (Columbus Freedom Coalition) we will speak from personal experience in promoting mutual aid and fighting back against state violence while building community.
SDS Keynote Address
“Cripping Survival, Dreaming Disability Justice Futures” with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
When: Saturday, April 4 at 6 p.m. (Eastern)
Where: Join at https://org.osu.edu/gamhaa/live-stream/
As we meet from our very disabled vantage point of being home on our phones and computers as disabled people during a global pandemic, we can see how our disabled ways of being, organizing and creating are what has allowed us to survive this far and what will continue to keep us alive. What are the dangers, pleasures and opportunities of being disabled at this particular apocalyptic space and time? And how is disability justice movement, thinking and creative work support us in finding new ways to create a vibrant disabled future?
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer, organizer, performance artist and educator of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma heritage. For more information, check out GAMHAA’s website: http://org.osu.edu/gamhaa/live-stream/.
The SDS Conference is sponsored by the Disability Studies Program, the Department of English, the Graduate Association of Mental Health Access and Advocacy (GAMHAA), the Disability Studies Graduate Student Association (DSGSA), M+A Architects, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise, the Office of Student Life and the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme.
Free and open to the public. For questions and access requests, please contact Melissa Guadrón at guadron.1@osu.edu.
Dedicated to centering race, ethnicity, disability, class, gender and sexuality in conversations about access and equity, the Transformative Access Project is funded by the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme and includes faculty from the departments of English, Comparative Studies and Speech & Hearing Sciences, as well as community partners from Equitas Health and M+A Architects.