Big Day for Disability History

Two big projects in US disability history are launching into the world today:

Today's the release date of Kim Nielsen's A Disability History of the United States (Beacon Press 2012), a concise (272 pages!), inexpensive (just $16 in hardcover!), and sweeping account, starting before 1492, and landing in the present-day.  If this is exactly the book you've needed for a class, for a book group, for your own study, you're not alone.   I've only been reading in disability history for seventeen years, but back in the 1990s, you'd be lucky to find a text that even acknowledged the existence of disability before Samuel Gridley Howe's 1848 report to the Massachusetts legislature.  (All my graduate projects had colonial and Early Republic settings, so I noticed.)  So for that aspect alone, let alone all the other goodness involved, I'm thrilled to greet this book.

Also--DVR alert--start popping the popcorn and dimming the lights!  Tonight is the first night of Turner Classic Movies' month-long feature, "The Projected Image:  A History of Disability in Film."   More than twenty films, various eras and genres, all with disability themes, airing all five Tuesdays in October.  Lawrence Carter-Long will co-host the series with Ben Mankiewicz.  Tonight's lineup:  An Affair to Remember (1957);  Patch of Blue (1965); Butterflies are Free (1972), Gaby-A True Story (1987), and The Sign of the Ram (1948).  All with closed captions, all with audio description.  It's a big deal that a cable network is devoting this much time to disability history and culture, and to make it accessible too; if you don't get TCM, consider calling your cable company and just subscribing for October.  That'll be great for you (20+ movies on disability themes, plus the rest of their lineup), and it'll send a signal that this kind of programming is appreciated. 

Also, if anyone wants to see a discussion feature here on DSTU, for either Kim Nielsen's book, or the TCM Film Series, I'm game.  Just holler in comments, and I'll be glad to set that up.  Otherwise, the hashtag for twitter discussions of the film series is #ProjectedImageTCM, and TCM has its own discussion boards that are certainly available for the purpose.

ETA:  Here's a podcast interview with Kim Nielsen about the new book.  

Save the Dates: Events at UCLA in February 2010

I just found out about this stuff on the Center for the Study of Women calendar website. I don't know anymore than I'm posting here, so you'll have to track after the details yourself. Try the website for The Body Symposium Series for starters. All events are free and open to the public, but as always for campus events, you should plan ahead for things like parking.

Wednesday 17 February
Glorya Kaufman Hall
4pm-7pm
AXIS/Access-Ability: Choreographing Disability
with Petra Kuppers and Victoria Marks
Talk-back with Judith Smith and member of the AXIS Dance Company
led by Susan Leigh Foster, Professor, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures

Thursday 18 February
Humanities 193
4pm-6pm
Disability, Queerness, and Spaces of Normativity
Robert McRuer, George Washington University: "Disabling Sex: Notes Toward a Crip Theory of Sexuality"
David Serlin, UC San Diego: "Was the Elephant Man Gay?"
Respondent: Helen Deutsch, UCLA
Chair: Arthur Little, UCLA

Sue Schweik, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public

Sue Schweik's long-awaited book, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public is now available as part of the History of Disability series from NYU Press. For much of the twentieth century, there were local laws in many American cities that allowed police to remove unsightly individuals from public view. The Chicago wording is most famous: "Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed... shall not... expose himself to public view."

Yes, really.

Sue's touring with this book--so if the description piques your interest and you can attend one of these appearances, go check them out.

San Francisco: Tuesday July 14 (With "Tiny" Garcia of Poor Magazine,
Leroy Moore, Coalition on Homelessness and the Po' Poets): Modern Times
Bookstore, 888 Valencia St, 7 pm. Focus on connections to continuing
criminalization of poverty today.

Cleveland: Sunday July 26: Barnes and Noble Eton Collection, 28801 Chagrin
Blvd, Woodmere, 2 pm. Focus on Cleveland and Ohio disability history.

Chicago: Tuesday July 28: Access Living, 115 W. Chicago, 6-8:30 pm. RSVP
to Riva, 312-640-1919, rlehrer@accessliving.org. Focus on poor disabled
peoples' resistance to the laws.

Chicago: Wednesday July 29: Women and Children First bookstore, 5233 North
Clark Street, 7:30 pm. Focus on connections betwen the policing of
disability and the policing of gender in the laws.

Rose Parade float, Helen Keller, and Braille

So last month, I mentioned a family outing to the Getty. This month, we were "tourists in our own city" by going to the display of Rose Parade floats in Pasadena. For two days after the parade, the floats are parked along two streets and in a parking lot, along with food vendors and "white suits," the Rose Parade volunteers who explain how each float is made. (It's a little like if each painting in a museum had its own docent.)

The route was quite wheelable (we saw quite a number of other visitors using mobility equipment), and there were accessible buses from the park-and-ride sites. And the second float we saw was.... the Lions Club International float, titled "the Miracle Worker," with a giant black-and-white image of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan (made of rice, poppy seeds, and onion seeds, we were told); behind it, a giant pair of glasses, a white cane, and a stack of books titled "Braille," "Helen Keller," "The Miracle Worker" etc. The "white suit" at that float showed us a braille version of the Parade program, and invited the kids to feel the braille pages.

Further along, another "white suit" invited us to go inside the barriers to touch a float and examine it at even closer range. Apparently this is an accommodation offered to disabled visitors--so my son was soon holding a starfish made of lima beans and whiffing irises.

[Photos depict the Lions Club float as described in the text of this post.]

"Reflections On the Physical and Moral Condition of the Blind (1825)"

This sounds like an interesting evening; if you're in the Bay Area, check it out (and report back!). From H-Disability (links added):

The Holman Society Presents

Selected Reflections On the Physical and Moral Condition of the Blind (1825):
A Conversation and Performance

Written By Therese-Adele Husson
Introduced by Catherine J. Kudlick
Performed by Carrie Paff

Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 8:00 PM
The East Bay Center for the Blind
2928 Adeline St in Berkeley

$5-20 sliding scale at the door
No one turned away for lack of funds.

The Holman Society invites you to a live performance of selected passages
from Reflections: Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France (NYU Press 2001). This brief yet surprisingly expansive treatise on blindness was probably dictated in desperation to one or more sighted scribes in the early nineteenth-Century French equivalent of a renter's résumé, only to be rejected, set aside, and lost for almost two-hundred years. The blind author's first-hand observations about blind people and their social status, rules for marriage, prospects for romance, and appropriate pedagogical approaches paint a portrait of a bygone place and time with hauntingly familiar themes which remain with us to this day. The style is 100% over-the-top, unedited nineteenth century, translated French hyperbole, with all of the linguistic curlicues and semantic serifs one could possibly wish for. Blind women are referred to as "female companions of misfortune," and chapters have titles such as "On the Inflection of a Sweet Voice on the Heart and Senses of a Blind Person." Nevertheless, an amazing amount of what she has to say strikes strong resonant chords in today's blind world. Even when her observations seem antique or deliberately demure, her writing raises deep questions as to why her experience was what it was, and why ours is what it is (or isn't).

We welcome Carrie Paff - a treasure of stage and screen - who will read for us, and Professor Catherine J. Kudlick - the manuscript's re-discoverer and translator - who will help us to place Adele Husson in her proper historical context.

The relaxed wine and cheese reception following the presentation will be an
extraordinary opportunity for open discussion and exchange of ideas. We
anticipate attendees from a rich maelstrom of interlocking backgrounds
including disability and gender studies, history, disability rights,
rehabilitation and rehabilitation engineering, and of course the Holman
Society and broader Bay Area blind community.

This event promises to be thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking,
and follows in the informal, yet deeply stimulating tradition of the Holman
Society. We hope you will attend.

Heads up in Oregon!

This looks like such a great summer class I had to pass along the word; go to this website for further information.

August 23-24 University of Oregon is offering a two day course titled
Global Perspective on Disability.

Instructor: Susan Sygall, Executive Director of Mobility International USA

Description: This interactive course will introduce students to 25 grassroots women leaders with disabilities who will be in Eugene participating in MIUSA’s 4th International Women’s Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD). Through class readings and discussions led by this international delegation of leaders, students will use a human rights paradigm to examine issues facing people with disabilities, especially women and girls with disabilities, around the world. Cross-disability, cross-cultural topics and viewpoints on disability will include:

• Gender and disability
• International development and disability
• Health and family issues
• Inclusive educational models
• Cross-cultural aspects of disability
• Employment and economic empowerment

Sounds like Eugene is the place to be this August!

The Unruly Salon Series, Vancouver, Spring 2008

This looks like a spectacular series. Registration is now open; they're also looking for local volunteers to help with set-up and such. Here (below) is the homepage blurb, but go check out the individual events scheduled--a nice mix of performing and visual arts, scholarship and storytelling formats, with a wide range of topics.

The Unruly Salon Series Presented by Green College at UBC January 12-March 29th, 2008

Join The Unruly Salon to further the discourse on diversity, humanity and civil society; contribute to a fundamental reshaping of the disability narrative; challenge ideas of ‘global citizenship’; and work to realize the full inclusion of all people.

In the context of a burgeoning disability arts and cultural movement in Canada and internationally, the Unruly Salon Series is an historical first at UBC. Drawing from both internationally renowned scholars of disability studies and professional artists from the visual, performing, musical arts’ sectors, the Salons will demonstrate a belief that the pursuit of equality and inclusion is a cultural task as much as it is an academic or political one.

Salon scholars and artists variously ask:

• How do varied experiences of dis/ability transform and vitalize the meaning of an education, the public sphere and social justice?
• How can disability arts, culture and struggles by people with disabilities transform and inform undergraduate and graduate education at UBC and in the wider province, Pacific Rim and internationally?
• What can we all learn from artists and scholars with disabilities currently participating in disability scholarship and the arts locally and globally.

The Series is the inspired creation of Dr. Leslie G. Roman, Associate Professor, Dept. of Educational Studies at the UBC Faculty of Education, in partnership with Mr. Geoff McMurchy, visionary artistic director of S4DAC (The Society for Disability Arts and Culture) and Artistic Director for The Unruly Salon Series.

Long Road Home: Celebrating Olmstead in Georgia

Cindy Sue of Six Almost Seven has details about the celebration for the 8th anniversary of the Olmstead decision in Georgia--they're looking for participants and volunteers. If you can be in Atlanta on Friday June 22, check it out. As one component of the day's events, Endeavor Freedom will be filming stories for preservation in the Georgia Disability Rights Exhibit. That makes so much sense. If you already have activists and survivors gathered to rally and celebrate, it's a perfect opportunity to record the stories that would otherwise be lost.

Mark your calendars...

Some upcoming events worth noting if you can get to New York, Portland, Asheville or Chicago:

2 May 2007: The latest installment in the disTHIS! Film Series showcases local New York City filmmakers on disability topics. They'll be screening and discussing three documentaries (One Night Sit, We Also Dance, and Spit it Out) at the Firehouse that night; for more details check the disTHIS! website.

18-20 May 2007: The Disability Arts and Culture Project is proud to present Portland, Oregon's second Disability Pride Art and Culture Festival. From the website:

The newly formed Disability Art and Culture Project merges disability studies with performance in its second annual festival. Disability Pride promotes the idea that people with disabilities deserve to be celebrated, their stories need to be told and their contributions to the community at large need to be recognized.

The festival brings together dancers and performance artists for three days of film screenings, live performance and workshops to celebrate the work of regional artists and to provide the general public with an alternative view of the lives of people with disabilities.

Check the website for more details about the program. It's all happening at the Central Lutheran Church, 1820 NE 21st Ave, Portland; price is $10 per evening (workshops free!).

E-mail: kafia@prodigy.net or Call 503-522-5218 for more details and accommodations. They're also looking for volunteers to work at the festival.

2 June 2007: The Southeastern Disability Culture Festival will be held on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and feature "dance troupes, spoken word, live music, gallery art, kid-friendly activities, workshops, great food, crafts, fun vendors, photography, and an after-party," including "crip hip-hop artist Leroy Moore (shown at right) and folk musician Jim Whalen." It's hosted by the North Carolina Youth Leadership Network and the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities. (There's no website for the festival that I can find, but I'll testify that if you're going to be in the South in the summertime, Asheville is a good place to be.)

21 July 2007: 4th Annual Disability Pride Parade: Disabled and Proud 2007 in Chicago IL. Individuals and groups intending to participate should register now at the website. The parade is part of a weekend of festivities, including an open mike poetry slam.