Beyond the shadow cast by the coronavirus, the future remains bright for Margaret Price: The associate professor and director of disability studies has been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to Sweden!  

Price’s path to the prestigious award began, rather poetically, where it will eventually end: Sweden. At the invitation of Dr. Stina Ericsson, a former research fellow at The Ohio State University, Price (along with Associate Professor Christa Teston and numerous other American and Scandinavian scholars) traveled to Sweden in August 2018 to attend a workshop entitled “Communicating Universal Design.”  
 
“During that workshop, I started chatting with Stina and her colleague Dr. Per-Olof Hedvall about our mutual interest in language, disability and design,” Price says. “We continued to converse over the next year or so.”  
 
In the summer of 2019, Ericsson encouraged Price to apply for the Fulbright Research Fellowship to Sweden. As Price explains, “Each Fulbright fellow must have a ‘host’ who invites them and helps arrange collaborative activities at the university and country where they’re in residence.”  
 
In addition to collaborating with Ericsson and Hedvall, Price will work as a scholar-in-residence for four months at the University of Gothenburg. During her residency, she intends to complete the final stage of a seven-year long study entitled the Disabled Faculty Project. The primary question that will guide this last phase of research is, in Price’s words, “How do people in academic spaces work together—not only through verbal communication, but through material objects and design—to achieve an ethic of shared accountability?” The conclusion of the Disabled Faculty Project will then enable Price to complete her second book, titled Crip Spacetime: A Re-orientation to Disability Studies.  
 
In her application for the fellowship, Price details why her project is uniquely relevant to both Sweden and the United States. “As a hub of technology and design innovation, Sweden is miles ahead of most of the world in universal design, yet continues to struggle with questions of what “diversity” means in this particular social and historical context,” she explains. “Correspondingly, the U.S. has a rather old-fashioned approach to disability in terms of policy… yet it is also the site of cutting-edge work that brings together race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class and disability.”  
 
Although Price will be living and working in a foreign country, home will never be far away. “My spouse Johnna, an architect specializing in sustainable design, will also travel to Sweden,” Price says. “Ze will be working remotely and doing collaborative work with architecture and design professionals in Gothenburg and Lund.” Price’s service dog, Ivy, will also reside in Sweden with her.  
 
Price’s Fulbright Research Fellowship was originally set to begin in August 2020 and extend through December; due to COVID-19, however, the time frame is now uncertain. Price remains undaunted: “Although plans are currently on hold… I’m still in active conversation with Stina and Per-Olof, and we’re looking forward to when we get to see each other again.” 
 
The Department of English extends its warmest congratulations to Dr. Margaret Price on her noteworthy accomplishment, and wishes her well in Sweden!