Category Archives: Workshop Sessions

2/17/23 – Shruti Vaidya “The function of fun: An ethnographic study of the role of “fun” in special education and vocational training spaces in India”

Announcements, Workshop Sessions

The function of fun: An ethnographic study of the role of “fun” in special education and vocational training spaces in India.

Shruti Vaidya

Friday, February 17th, 3:30pm – Rosenwald 329

Refreshments will be provided

Abstract: In this dissertation chapter, I analyze the role of fun in special education and vocational training spaces in India and explore how it does or does not weave into everyday and exceptional institutional practices. I specifically focus on the relational dynamic that emerges between special educators and intellectually disabled adults at Udaan, a new arts and vocational center in Pune that prioritizes principles of fun and pleasure. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2021-22, I explore how moving away from the objectives of learning and productivity, and enabling fun and pleasurable experiences, can lead to the creation of “new worlds,” (Anjaria & Anjaria 2020, 234) and new social opportunities for intellectually disabled adults. I argue that by adopting a playful stance, the founders of Udaan break the monotony so deeply associated with special schools and vocational centers that cater to intellectually disabled people, and make otherwise mundane activities “fun”. Finally, I consider the issue of teasing or “making fun” as it came up repeatedly at Udaan. Moments of joy and teasing often co-existed, overlapped, but sometimes diverged- especially if it led to feelings of upset and hurt. By talking about practices of “making fun” and their ability to charge the atmosphere with negative or uncomfortable feelings, I want to make note of how complicated scenes of fun and laughter are, depending on who is in charge, who gets to say what, and at whose expense. Lastly, I also reflect on how I, as the ethnographer, was drawn into scenes of fun, laughter, as well as uncomfortable teasing, which affected my stance as a researcher and made me a participant in ways different from my other field-sites, which were more regulated and disciplined in nature. Instead of answering whether a focus on fun at Udaan unsettles the hierarchical relationship between educators and intellectually disabled people, I background (not ignore) unequal relational dynamics and foreground moments of joy. I do so not because power and control are absent in such moments, but because the presence of fun may produce affinities and intimacies (however temporary) that need to be attended to on their own accord.

2/10/2023 – Matthew Borus “Navigating Policy from Below: Managing on SSI and SSDI in Greater Chicago”

Workshop Sessions

Please join us for our first of three disability studies workshop panels this Friday, February 10th.

 

As always, please reach out to me (ewroberts@gmail.com) if you have any access needs or requests.

Emily Williams

Student Coordinator

 

Navigating Policy from Below:

Managing on SSI and SSDI in Greater Chicago

 

Matthew Borus

 

Friday, February 10th, 3:30pm – Rosenwald 329

Refreshments will be provided.

 

Abstract: The Social Security Administration’s income support programs for disabled people serve millions of beneficiaries each year.  But the literature on social programs has paid limited attention to these programs, particularly to the lived experience of claimants.  This paper draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation with disabled people in the Chicago area to argue that they manage their benefits through a process of policy navigation from below.  With limited resources and information, clients devote considerable mental and emotional labor to maintaining their eligibility, earning enough money to meet their needs, and dealing with the uncertainty and precarity that frame those tasks.

A note from the scholar: Hi colleagues! I’m grateful for the opportunity to present at the workshop.  Attached is the paper I’m working on.  If you have time to review it, that would be great, though I hope that you’ll still attend if not.  This paper is based on interviews with disabled Social Security beneficiaries.  As it currently stands, it’s more of a poverty-focused paper than a disability paper–not the direction in which I expected it to develop!  I’m grateful for all feedback, with a particular eye to ways to tie it to disability-focused literatures. Thanks, Matt

4/26/22 – Abigail Cline, “Lives: A Conscious Musical” (EthNoise! and Theater and Performance Studies Workshops)

Announcements, Workshop Sessions

Please join the EthNoise! and Theater and Performance Studies Workshops for:

 

Abigail Cline

MAPH Student, University of Chicago

Who will Present:

Lives: A Conscious Musical

Respondent:
Emily Williams, PhD Student, University of Chicago Department of Music

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

4:30–6:00 PM CST

Over Zoom

(Live ASL interpretation and Zoom live captioning will be made available for this session.)

Please register for the workshop HERE. The workshop coordinators will circulate the paper to all registrants and the Zoom link is made available upon registration.

(Please do not cite or circulate the works-in-progress without the author’s explicit consent.)

ABSTRACT: This critical paper explores two stigmatized communities, d/Deafness and mental illness, and how musical theatre can be a powerful vehicle for defamiliarizing the misunderstandings around these experiences. To demonstrate this, I have composed a full-length stage musical, Lives: A Conscious Musical, to explore and work to repair these sociopolitical concerns. When you think of musical theatre, it is likely that you don’t initially consider d/Deaf people to be part of the cast or the audience. Typical expectations around music and musical theatre are highly conditioned by able-bodied norms, including the mistaken assumptions that d/Deaf people don’t interact with sound and/or don’t like music or musicals. In reality, d/Deaf folks have a wide range of ways to interact with sound (Holmes, Maler) and respecting this diversity means aligning with the modern Deaf community’s perspective, which does not consider deafness a disability, but rather a minority identity defined by a range of sensory experiences. My artistic experiences with the d/Deaf community were my initial inspiration to compose a story in this medium. Creating musical theatre that stages both hearing and Deaf language, both hearing and Deaf ways of being, creates a valuable opportunity towards repairing a painful history of stigma that persists today. The other community addressed is those who live with mental illness. By observing trauma’s effect on the body and a variety of healing methods, particularly less conventional alternative modalities such as hypnotic past life regressions, we engage with approaching recovery as a customized, rather than one-size-fits-all, approach. My main objective is to implement progressive academic ideas, not limited to disability studies, ethnomusicology, linguistic anthropology, and psychology; into a digestible medium for mainstream audiences to experience.

DS Study Group Wed. Nov. 13th: Emily Wang: “Investigating Accessibility in the Writing Process with Dyslexic Adults in Higher Education”

Workshop Sessions

Dear all, 


We are very happy to announce the next session for the autumn quarter: 
  “Investigating Accessibility in the Writing Process with Dyslexic Adults in Higher Education”
       Emily Wang 
                PhD student, Northwestern University, Technology and
Social Behavior 
                                        
               
 November 13th , 12.30- 1.50 pm
Saieh Hall, Room 141
LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED! 
 
 
Please join us for a warm, thoughtful and engaged discussion! 
 
Here is the abstract for the article to be read before the meeting: 
 
Writing and editing text are ubiquitous tasks in professional work. However, these activities present accessibility issues for many people with disabilities, such as individuals with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a lifelong disability characterized by frequent misspellings and reading difficulties, and is a challenging condition in the professional world where spelling and grammar mistakes matter. To better understand how dyslexia impacts the writing process in higher education, we conducted qualitative interviews and observations with 11 dyslexic adults in different academic majors. Our findings reveal how dyslexia impacts more than just spelling performance in a single user: dyslexic adults must navigate their disability experiences in an ecosystem of various assistive technologies, mainstream productivity tools, work relationships, and ableist expectations for academic writing. We contribute insights towards understanding how dyslexia is constructed as a disability in higher education and design opportunities for assistive writing tools.
 
 
 
The article, to be read before the meeting can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IaaOWRsl-A0J9JpxtBjaI7C_Dldjc9IH?usp=sharing

 
To receive updates about future events, subscribe to the Disability Studies Workshop listserv here: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/disstudies-reading, or check out our website: http://voices.uchicago.edu/disabilitystudies/.
 

All Disability Studies Workshop events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events this quarter will be hosted in Saieh Hall, Room 141.  Attached is a map of Saieh Hall. Saieh Hall is wheelchair accessible and this map provides information on access features. We are committed to making the workshop accessible; if there are accommodations that would be of use to you, please do not hesitate to contact the study group coordinators – Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu) and Sharon Seegers Marie (sharons@uchicago.edu)

 
Looking forward to seeing everyone soon! 
Shruti and Sharon 

DS Study Group Wed Oct 16th: Zihao Lin “Watching Your Voice is Not a Dream”

Workshop Sessions

Dear all,

We are very happy to announce our first student presentation for the quarter:

“Watching Your Voice is Not a Dream”

Practicalities of Envisioning and Disabled Startuping in Southern China

Zihao Lin, PhD student, University of Chicago, CHD

Discussant: Shruti Vaidya, PhD student, University of Chicago, CHD

October 16th, 12:30-1:50

 Saieh Hall, 141

 LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED! 

Please join us for a warm, thoughtful and engaged discussion of this student work in progress!
The article, to be read before the meeting can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IaaOWRsl-A0J9JpxtBjaI7C_Dldjc9IH?usp=sharing

To receive updates about future events, subscribe to the Disability Studies Workshop listserv here: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/disstudies-reading, or check out our website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/disabilitystudies/.

All Disability Studies Workshop events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events this quarter will be hosted in Saieh Hall, Room 141.  Attached is a map of Saieh Hall. Saieh Hall is wheelchair accessible and this map provides information on access features. We are committed to making the workshop accessible; if there are accommodations that would be of use to you, please do not hesitate to contact the study group coordinators – Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu) and Sharon Seegers Marie (sharons@uchicago.edu)

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!
Shruti and Sharon

DS Study Group, WEDNESDAY, 2nd OCT: 12.30 to 1.50. GROUP DISCUSSION ON PAIN

Workshop Sessions

Dear all,

We are very happy to be back this Autumn quarter to our wonderful disability studies space. For our first session we will be discussing readings on the topic of “pain”.
We will be meeting at:  Saieh Hall, 141 and LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED! 
 
Following are the readings for the session: 
 1) ” Stigma, Liminality, and Chronic Pain: Mind-Body Borderlands” by Jean E. Jackson ( attached PDF with this email) 
 
2)  “Sick Woman Theory” by johanna hedva- available on this link-http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory
For more information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the study group coordinators – Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu) and Sharon Seegers Marie (sharons@uchicago.edu)
Looking forward to meeting everyone soon!
Shruti and Sharon
PS- Also attached is a map of Saieh Hall. Saieh Hall is wheelchair accessible and this map provides information on access features. Please contact us for any access questions or concerns.
Stigma, liminality, and chronic pain

JAN 15, Bess Williamson, Accessible America, Design and the Politics of Disability Rights

Workshop Sessions

The UChicago Disability Studies Workshop is excited to announce our first event of Winter Quarter, co-sponsored with UChicago’s Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture!

Dr. Bess Williamson

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Accessible America:

Design and the Politics of Disability Rights

Swift Hall Common Room

Tuesday, January 15, 12:30 pm

(Please note the different time and location.)

Light lunch will be served at 12:15

In this talk, Professor Williamson will discuss her new book, Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design (NYU press, 2019), and highlight how objects of design – such as architecture, public transportation, and everyday housewares – played a key role in developing an American understanding of the rights of disabled people under the law, in the consumer marketplace, and in creative personal lives.

The Swift Hall Common Room is wheelchair-accessible and located on the first floor of Swift Hall, near the accessible entrance at the southwest corner of the building, adjacent to Bond Chapel. If there are other accommodations that would make the event more accessible to you, or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email Matthew Borus (mgborus@uchicago.edu), Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu), or Nigel O’Hearn (ohearn@uchicago.edu).

Dec 5, 12:30: Tyler Zoanni, “Appearances of Christianity and Disability in Uganda”

Workshop Sessions

The Disability Studies Workshop and the African Studies Workshop are excited to invite you to a co-sponsored workshop:

Tyler Zoanni

PhD Candidate, New York University

Department of Anthropology

Appearances of Christianity and Disability

in Uganda

With discussant Stephanie Palazzo

UChicago Dept of Comparative Human Development

Saieh Hall, Room 103

December 5th, 12:30-1:50

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract:

This paper considers how Christianity contributes to the appearance of cognitive disability in Uganda, a country with very high rates of disability and where Christian efforts provide the vast majority of disability care, housing, and advocacy. As a point of departure, I invoke Hannah Arendt’s notion of appearance as a way to thematize the importance of public display within Ugandan social life and the challenge that people with readily evident disabilities pose to Ugandan social aesthetics. The paper traces how cognitive disability disappears under the liberal logics that organize Uganda’s progressive disability laws and activism. Next, I compare the ways that Catholic and Pentecostal efforts sustain the appearance of cognitive disability, tracing their theological differences as well as their shared paternalism. My argument is quite simple: Even as Ugandan Christian paternalism in response to cognitive disability may appear deeply repugnant to a liberal vision of disability politics, it sustains a form of disability appearance that is otherwise not possible.

The article, to be read before the meeting can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Mjvbz_byBd8jFIaTR9Jba6r_FtkdjmgT

To receive updates about future events, subscribe to the Disability Studies Workshop listserv here: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/disstudies-reading, or check out our website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/disabilitystudies/.

All Disability Studies Workshop events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events this quarter will be hosted in Saieh Hall, Room 103.  (Returning participants, please note the new location!) Saieh 103 wheelchair accessible, though for navigational purposes, please note that it is on the west side of the building, down a long hallway (with a somewhat uneven tiled surface) from the accessible front entrance. An overall campus map is available here, and one focused on accessible entrances and exits to Saieh Hall is here. We are committed to making the workshop accessible; if there are accommodations that would be of use to you, please contact mgborus@uchicago.edu or shrutiv@uchicago.edu.

Contact Zoe Berman (zberman@uchicago.edu), Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu), or Matthew Borus (mgborus@uchicago.edu) with any questions or concerns.

Nov 14, 12:30: Chao Wang, “Reproducing Dependency: Blinded Veterans and Family Life in a Rehabilitation Camp during Wartime China, 1942-1945”

Workshop Sessions

The Disability Studies Workshop is proud to present:

Chao Wang

PhD candidate, UChicago

Department of History

Reproducing Dependency: Blinded Veterans and Family Life in a Rehabilitation Camp during Wartime China, 1942-1945

Saieh Hall, Room 103

November 14th, 12:30-1:20

Light lunch will be provided. Please note the shorter-than-usual time.

Abstract: Towards the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945), China’s Nationalist government had established 32 rehabilitation camps in 10 provinces that housed over 70,000 military casualties. Managing this unprecedented number of wounded and disabled veterans in ways that reduced the economic burden on the wartime state became the primary goal for the national campaign to make “crippled but useful” (suican bufei) soldiers after their demobilization. Drawing from a historical sociological survey of one of the largest rehabilitation camps that housed about 500 blinded veterans and their dependents (wives, children) in Sichuan, the wartime Nationalist Great Rear Area (Dahoufang), this paper investigates how the war’s production of a sensory disability reshaped the relationship between veterans and the state. In the scheme of rehabilitation, war blindness became a corporeal asset for veterans to claim financial supports from the state as long as they followed the protocol of reconfiguring their injured body to fit the state’s demands of productivity. This included undergoing a mandatory process of training for industrial skills and written literacy, as well as participating in reclamation works in the military farms. In reality, however, the obligation of blinded veterans to support their families had driven them to engage in a variety of nonproductive and illicit activities (e.g. singing, fortune telling, gambling, opium smuggling) that deviated from the goal of rehabilitation and reproduced further dependency upon the state. Comparing the state’s remodeling of disability to fit the military-industrial system with individual investments in disability to meet familial responsibilities, I argue that wartime rehabilitation programs failed to strengthen the link between disabled veterans and the Nationalist welfare state.

 

There is no advance reading for this presentation.  This is a work in progress, so please come prepared for a thoughtful discussion to offer Chao constructive critical feedback.

To receive updates about future events, subscribe to the Disability Studies Workshop listserv here: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/disstudies-reading, or check out our website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/disabilitystudies/.

 

All Disability Studies Workshop events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events this quarter will be hosted in Saieh Hall, Room 103.  Saieh 103 wheelchair accessible, though for navigational purposes, please note that it is on the west side of the building, down a long hallway (with a somewhat uneven tiled surface) from the accessible front entrance. An overall campus map is available here, and one focused on accessible entrances and exits to Saieh Hall is here. We are committed to making the workshop accessible; if there are accommodations that would be of use to you, please contact mgborus@uchicago.edu or shrutiv@uchicago.edu.

 

Contact Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu) or Matthew Borus (mgborus@uchicago.edu) with any questions or concerns.

WEDNESDAY, October 24, 12:30 pm: Sharon S. Marie, “For Love or Money: Negotiating Relationality in Hà Nội Sign Language Interpreting”

Workshop Sessions, , , ,

DISABILITY STUDIES IS PROUD TO PRESENT: 

Sharon S. Marie

PhD candidate, UChicago

Department of Comparative Human Development

For Love or Money: Negotiating Relationality in Hà Nội Sign Language Interpreting

Saieh Hall, Room 103

October 24th, 12:30-1:50

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract: What does it mean to love disabled people, and what does it mean to provide services out of love? In disability studies, love has often treated critically, with scholars excavating the way claims of loving disabled people carry connotations of pity, desire to save people, or paint disabled people as an undifferentiated other. Yet in Hà Nội, Việt Nam, one of the primary expectations Deaf people have for sign language interpreters is that they demonstrate love for Deaf people. In this presentation, I explore what the imperative to love Deaf people means and the types of relationality it affords, situating love for Deaf people within other discourses of love in Việt Nam. I also examine how interpreters express love for Deaf people in changing economic conditions.

 

There is no advance reading for this presentation.  This is a work in progress, so please come prepared for a thoughtful discussion to offer Sharon constructive critical feedback.

To receive updates about future events, subscribe to the Disability Studies Workshop listserv here: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/disstudies-reading, or check out our website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/disabilitystudies/.

 

All Disability Studies Workshop events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, events this quarter will be hosted in Saieh Hall, Room 103.  (Returning participants, please note the new location!) Saieh 103 wheelchair accessible, though for navigational purposes, please note that it is on the west side of the building, down a long hallway (with a somewhat uneven tiled surface) from the accessible front entrance. An overall campus map is available here, and one focused on accessible entrances and exits to Saieh Hall is here. We are committed to making the workshop accessible; if there are accommodations that would be of use to you, please contact mgborus@uchicago.edu or shrutiv@uchicago.edu.

 

Contact Shruti Vaidya (shrutiv@uchicago.edu) or Matthew Borus (mgborus@uchicago.edu) with any questions or concerns.