Unpacking Ableism in Our Lives: A Workshop on Developing a Disability Studies Lens

A workshop on why and how we should develop a disability studies framework for understanding the world around us and our own lives. We ask that participants read the Lateral forum on critical disability studies before the workshop, consisting of three short essays by Julie Avril Minich, Sami Schalk, and Jina B. Kim.

This event is part of the Mellon-Sawyer “Suffer Well” Seminar Series and is made possible by generous support from the Mellon Foundation. The Sawyer Seminar is a yearlong series that will offer lectures, symposia and presentations from invited speakers that explore human suffering in its various forms and to develop future scholarly projects that confront directly the place of suffering in human experience.

Dear Friends of the UCI Center for Medical Humanities, This is a reminder to please join us Thursday and Friday, February 6 & 7, for two events that explore ableism and disability studies: a conversation between two leading scholars and a workshop. During the conversation, scholars Mimi Khúc and Sami Schalk will discuss race, ableism and disability studies by exploring ableism in Asian American and African American communities and how ethnic studies can more fully develop a disability lens. Meanwhile, the workshop will help participants develop a disability studies framework for understanding the world around us and our own lives.

Both events are free and open to the public. However, spacing is limited for the workshop and requires an RSVP.

I hope to see you there,

James Kyung-Jin Lee
Director, UCI Center for Medical Humanities
Associate Professor, Asian American Studies RSVP for the Worksho Humanities p

About the speakers

Mimi Khúc is an adjunct lecturer in Asian American studies at University of Maryland. She is a Vietnamese American scholar, teacher and writer on race and religion, queer of color politics, mental health and Asian American motherhood.

Sami Schalk is associate professor of gender and women’s studies at University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her research focuses on disability, race and gender in contemporary American literature and culture, especially African American and women’s texts. Dr. Schalk’s first book, Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction, was published by Duke University Press in 2018. These events are made possible by the Sawyer Seminar “Suffer Well,” thanks to generous funding by the Mellon Foundation. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Requests for accommodations, including ASL interpretation, can be provided with advance request. Please contact jkl@uci.edu. Contact us: medicalhumanities@uci.edu | 949.824.91951
Humanities Gateway, 1st floor | Irvine, CA 92697