Disability – Spring 2016

The Americans with Disabilities Act, having just celebrated its 25th anniversary, profoundly changed the United States, prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities and requiring levels of accommodations and accessibility unknown to previous generations. At this important historic moment, the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues will take as its spring 2016 theme the concept of DISABILITY, exploring the scientific, cultural and representational landscape surrounding understandings of both ability and disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act will serve as a particular springboard for our events, as we consider its social and political history, its limitations, and its future. Approaching disability from interdisciplinary perspectives in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, this semester’s events will bring together medical, legal, activist, and artistic approaches to a reconsideration of what constitutes a (dis)ability; the social and cultural ramifications of how we define and respond to disability; and the ways that disability and ability intersect with other forms of identities and oppressions.

Karen Nakamura

NakamuraposterfinalHaas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology, University of California Berkeley

Disability Rights in Global Perspective

Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Grassroots disability movements such as mad pride and crip pride have pushed themselves to the forefront of conversations across the world about diversity and inclusion, but there has also been considerable setbacks in recent years. Nakamura discusses disability rights social movements and how they have fundamentally changed the social contract and fabric in various countries.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Office of Global Study and Engagement and the departments of East Asian studies and women’s,  gender and sexuality studies.  It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Karen Nakamura is the Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology at the University of California Berkeley. Her first monograph was tiNakamura Picturetled Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity (2006). Her next project resulted in two ethnographic films and a monograph titled, A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan (2014). She is Read more

Lance Wahlert

Wahlert PosterAssistant Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Disability Studies and Contemporary Bioethics for HIV-Positive Persons

Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In this talk, Wahlert will discuss the prominence of HIV-positive persons in the history of medicine, paying special attention to their impact by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of women’s and gender studies, American studies, biology and the health studies certificate program. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

An historian of medicine and literary/cinema/queer studies scholar by training, Dr. Lance Wahlert is assistant professor of medical ethics & health policy and director of thelance wahlert image e Master of Bioethics (MBE) program in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.   He also holds affiliated standing-faculty appointments in Penn’s departments of: Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies; English; Cinema Studies; and, the History and Sociology of Science.

Dr. Wahlert’s scholarly interests include narrative medicine, clinical ethics, the history of LGBTQ medicine, disability theory, cinema studies, and Irish and Norwegian literature.  Accordingly, he has held residential Read more

Manju Banerjee

BanerjeePosterFINALVice President and Director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and Associate Professor at Landmark College

Universal Design and Diverse Learners

Thursday, March 3, 2016
Holland Union Building, Social Hall West, 7 p.m.

This presentation will address issues, experiences, challenges and alternatives in pedagogical practice for today’s diverse population of college students. Starting with an overview of neurodiversity and learner differences, the presenter will share practical hand-on techniques, eTools, and strategies as guided by the Universal Design mindset.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, American Studies, Kappa Delta Pi, the Wellness Center and the Office of Disability Services (ODS).  It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Manju Banerjee pic distributionBiography (provided by the speaker)

Manju Banerjee, Ph.D., is vice president and director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and associate professor at Landmark College. Dr. Banerjee has over 29 years of experience in the field of learning disabilities and postsecondary education, and is a certified diagnostician and teacher-consultant on learning disabilities. She has published and presented extensively, both nationally and internationally, on topics including Universal Design Read more

Lennard Davis – “Morgan Lecturer”

Davis Final PosterDistinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Professor of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago

 

Morgan Lecture

The Americans with Disabilities Act:  Civil Rights Then, Now, and in the Future

Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

The Americans with Disabilities Act recently reached its 25th year anniversary.  This lecture looks at the history of how the most encompassing civil rights act of the 20th century, affecting the largest US minority, came to be passed; what its effects were and are; and what more work remains to be done. A book sale and signing will follow.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the Department of History.  It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

lennarddavisBiography (provided by the speaker)

Lennard J. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and teaches in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he had also served as the department’s Head.  In Read more