Past conferences

The Society for Disability Studies (SDS) is pleased to co-conference for the 4th time with The Ohio State University’s (OSU) Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability conference in April 2022. SDS plans to schedule conference events April 9-12, 2022. Generously funded by The Ohio State University and the Ethel Louise Armstrong Endowment, the OSU Multiple Perspectives Conference is extending its support to include SDS. Now in its 21st year, the OSU conference, running April 11-12, 2022, expands perspectives on disability and enhances community resources for a broad and diverse audience. The SDS@OSU activities are open to all to attend but will be arranged, proposed, peer-reviewed, and presented only by SDS Members. For information about becoming an SDS member or renewing for 2022 (no one is turned away for an inability to pay), please visit our membership page. Your membership status will be checked at registration. The conference kicks off on Friday, April 8th with affinity group meetings throughout the day, hosted by volunteers from the SDS community aligned with each group. Please feel free to drop in to one or many. The conference presentations will take place April 9th-12th, 2022.

During these turbulent times of racial injustice and disappointing leadership(s), amplified by the current pandemic and climate crisis, the world is (has been, and continues to be) hurting, while some have been thriving at the expense of ‘others’. Right now, we need to take a step back and listen and learn from those who are members of some of the most vulnerable communities, in particular historically multiply marginalized communities. It is imperative to center the voices and lived experiences of ostracized groups by hearing/reading/watching them roar. RIGHT NOW, this is not about another academic piece, another line on the resume, another polarizing conversation (you are right and I’m wrong), but rather about the recognition of life and death, access, dignity, justice, and humanity, with passion and humor. Collectively, let’s cease allowing this atmosphere to silo us, creating a deep cold spell of isolation. These issues impact us all. There is nothing wrong with us! That’s just what we are led to think and feel. Let’s take a long deep inhale and then exhale out the cold spell lodged within by coming together and sharing what spoons we can spare—living and breathing compassion. Let’s consider not only our struggles, but also the possibilities already blossoming in the present, and cocoon each other with love, compassion, and fresh air.

Disability Studies arose from collective action that includes political activism and academic research and teaching. By reexamining the current perception of an academic/activist divide, Disability Studies can explore how fractures are created in coalitions and reframe them as growth plates. Disability activism and academia are interdependent and dynamic. The descriptors activism and scholarship are both ways of thinking and moving towards actions that manifest in a diverse array of webbed implications. Our 2020 conference theme asks participants to reexamine the construct and intentions of activism and scholarship, to trouble reductive and divisive binaries, and to identify collective ways of drawing nearer to an inclusive, equitable, accessible, and social-spatial justice for all, in particular for multiply-marginalized communities. How are activism and study defined within academic and community spaces? What are the specific contexts in which people engage in “activist” and “academic” roles, including as artists, community organizers, scholar-activists, and activist-scholars? How can we generate understanding and sustainable growth out of the tensions engendered by the oversimplified construct of binaries? Who profits from this divisiveness, especially in today’s political climate? How can we collectively build a framework of interdependence within activism and scholarship?

This might include:·        

• What are the histories of the dynamics between disability studies and disability activism? What are their roles and contributions?
• How to decentralize Western scholarship and activism? How to engage with decentering the West during this 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act?
• What are the relationships of disability academics/activism to disability services and gatekeeping?
• How to address accessibility, create access, or implement radical access by working across the “academic/activist divide”?
• How to center the contributions of the Disability Justice movement, while also recognizing the historical contributions of the Disability Rights movement and problematizing the relationships?
• What are the critiques of how thought and action are related, and how they interact with perception and feeling? 
• To address the role of White Supremacy in disability studies and disability activism?
• How could disability activism branch out without co-opting other forms of activism?
• How is disability activism constructed within academic and community spaces? What could activism look like? How is Disability Studies constructed within academic and community spaces? What could DS look like?·        
• What are the different forms of artistic activism? How are entertainment and activism intertwined? What are the possibilities in terms of outreach to the younger generation? What are the tensions encountered by scholars who were activists first? By disabled academics who are still struggling for recognition and survival in academia?

We held the following session on the 6th of April:

Society for Disability Studies Town Hall in the Shadow of Covid-19

We cannot let this conference pass without acknowledging what is all around us and why we are not all together in Columbus hugging and sharing hotel rooms and meals and late night conversation. SDS never considered cancelling the conference even while our classes went online with so much extra work, and every other conference went bye bye. This Town Hall will be a simple unstructured conversation. Our intent is two-fold: first, to share information about how this impacts us and all disabled people; and second, to begin a plan for what SDS can do to help. We will give everyone links to the best (and the funniest) material to cross our screens. We will then talk about what we don’t know. Finally, we will start to form an SDS Covid-19 Action Plan. This is an “All Hands on Deck” event.

SDS strand, as part of the Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability conference hosted by the Ohio State University

In its nineteenth year, Multiple Perspectives is an ongoing exploration of disability in context. A conversation including many voices and reflecting perspectives gained through lived experience, research, theory, art, and practice. This year’s theme, Continuing the Journey from Noblesse Oblige to Social Justice, marks the 40th anniversary of Southeastern Community College v. Davis. Argued on April 23, 1979 before the U.S. Supreme Court, this was a case of first impression that set the pattern for understanding disability rights under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and helped shape the Americans With Disabilities Act. In Davis, the Supreme Court recognized that the future would chart the journey to social justice in unpredictable ways: 

“We do not suggest that the line between a lawful refusal to extend affirmative action and illegal discrimination against handicapped persons always will be clear. It is possible to envision situations where an insistence on continuing past requirements and practices might arbitrarily deprive genuinely qualified handicapped persons of the opportunity to participate in a covered program. … Thus, situations may arise where a refusal to modify an existing program might become unreasonable and discriminatory.” – Southeastern Community College v. Davis, Oyez, 442 

The SDS Strand aims to highlight the strength of our shared work and the importance of bringing multiple voices together to co-construct the future of disability studies across multiple landscapes of academia, community, grassroots movements, art communities, and organizations. Understanding that our growth and collective interdisciplinary contributions are vital, and that disability studies adopts a critical interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to scholarly inquiry in solidarity with grassroots disability movements, we welcome emerging activists, artists, leaders, and scholars to join established communities for three days of SDS panels, discussions, workshops, and other collaborations.  

Disability studies and SDS have emerging roles in helping to elevate the voices of Disability Justice communities and in connecting with work in the Global South, especially promoting intersectional scholarly and advocacy work. These relationships can lead us to critically (re)examine, (re)theorize, (re)approach, and (re)imagine disability, care, and access on a world scale. Focus on the emergent in disability studies (topics, approaches, and communities where it has not mobilized yet) might better honor goals for prioritizing vital work being done with grassroots, community-grounded frameworks, centering those living at the intersection of multiple oppressions. Considering the responsibility of academia / privilege to address these needs, meaningful collaboration and acknowledgement of interdependence in this work are key.     

Atlanta 2015 Conference – the 28th annual meeting of SDS, the Summit on Disability and Social Justice.

Disability as/is a civil right, a human right, a social right, an economic right, an educational right, a medical right, a sexual right, an employment right, a voting right, a representational right. All of these, and more. Communities and advocates – locally, nationally, transnationally – have been making efforts to get/gain rights, including recognition, legal and/or cultural; and trying, also, to get it right–to address, analyze, reclaim, revise, redress, recover disability representations in literature, culture, politics, and history. The diversity of global articulations of rights; the emergence of critiques of rights frameworks; and transnational developments such as the recent use of language from the American Disabilities Act in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities — UNCRPD, present the field of Disability Studies, whose growth has paralleled these trends, with an opportunity to consider disability rights in all of its complexities:

When has disability, or its likeness, been considered within grassroots advocacy movements in political geographies around the globe, including nation-states and indigenous governmentalities, and in regional, local, comparative perspectives? When does disability, or its likeness, enter state law, and under what conditions? How have recent or former projects, languages, questions, policies, issues, movements, and events about disability emerged, traveled, and been contested? What conditions allow national laws to migrate transnationally? Are there shifts in the popular emergence and circulation of disability values, and are these shifts expressed with specific forms of representation? How and where has disability politics allied with, or against, “human rights” and/or decolonial frameworks? How have activists and artists crippled state-sanctioned uses of disability?

In honor of its 26th annual meeting convening in Orlando, Florida – the land of make-believe, the home of Disney World and Universal Studios – the program committee of the Society for Disability Studies would like to encourage you to think about the ways in which we create and re-create our lived realities. We would like you to think not only about disabled people as complexly embodied historical actors, but also about the many social, economic, physiological, and political forces that shape, and often constrain, our lived realities. As people situated at the intersection of local and global histories, systems, and structures, we are constantly shaping and molding our social, cultural, and built environment(s). And they in turn affect us in innumerable ways. Nothing we do or say, or have done, can be divorced from its social and historical context, nor can it be isolated from the many human relations through which it emerges. While all proposals that explore these themes are welcome, the program committee especially seeks to solicit work that explores the interesting interactions among larger systems or structures, such as global capitalism, neoliberalism, militarism, and our immediate corporeal experiences – pleasure, pain, sex, illness, debility, a ride at Disney World or a walk through Epcot Center.

We offer the following broad questions to foster interdisciplinary perspectives and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration:

• What are the many ways in which disabled people have conceptualized and enacted changes to the built environment and to the many things with which we interact on a daily basis? What barriers do people who experience disability face? How have these things changed over time?
• What happens when local understandings, strategies, and ways of being meet up with more globalizing ones?
• What new possibilities for change do such intersections produce, and, alternatively, where do we find disconnects that thwart cooperation?
• How have various technologies–and access to them–shaped the formation of disabled identities and cultures, as well as interpersonal and group relationships?
• In what ways are the realities we create bounded or shaped by geographic location, institutional formation, identity politics, and other factors?
• What do collisions between the local and the global reveal about our experiences? What do they obscure?
• How have disability politics and activism shaped not only the built environment, but human relations as well?
• How does enduring poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the persistence of the medical and charity model shape / limit access to the many realities we create in our lives? How do these factors also open possibilities? How have these factors enhanced disability rights?
• How have the various disciplines within disability studies explored and analyzed the built environment? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?
• How have/might the various disciplines and fields within disability studies work across disciplinary boundaries to enhance the quality of our lives?
• How have/might disability studies reach out to local and national organizations and institutions to influence families, religious communities, service providers, political institutions, employers, etc.?
• How does a focus on Lived Realities influence research methods, theory, and the underpinnings of disability scholarship and practice?
• How have prevailing (contemporary) paradigms (or narratives) succeeded or failed in capturing “our lived realities”?

We welcome proposals in all areas of disability studies, especially those submissions premised on this year’s theme.

This year’s program committee is continuing the idea of specific “strands” that relate to the larger more general theme of the SDS conference. Each strand may have 3 or 4 related events (e.g. panels, workshops), organized to occur throughout the conference and in a way that will eliminate any overlap of sessions in an effort to facilitate a more sustained discussion of specific issues that have arisen as areas of interest within the organization.

Our planned strands this year are as follows. Others may emerge from member proposals:

• Florida / Southern movement history: The DRM has a rich history of disability activism in the South that offers tremendous opportunity for exploration.
• Communities / Identities and disability studies: Members would like to continue these areas of discussion from our conference last year in Denver. Explore challenges and possibilities that shape collaboration, culture, and community for people who experience disability.
• Power and privilege: Ongoing discussions among SDS board members, members of SDS caucuses, and others led to this strand, intended to look both at the workings of power and privilege broadly and within SDS itself.
• Professional development: This strand addresses a need identified by many of our members for professional development, including matters such as locating funding, pursuing academic and non-academic jobs, surviving the tenure track, etc.
• Translational research in disability studies and health sciences: Using translational research here to refer to research that translates between disciplines, and from basic research to applied research and to practice, the goals of this NIH-related conference strand are: (1) to demonstrate how disability studies theory contributes to the conception of health sciences research and practice; (2) to provide best practice examples of disability studies translational research and practice; and (3) to mentor a new generation of federally funded disability studies researchers and practitioners. We particularly welcome submissions from disabled clinicians/clinical researchers interested in cutting edge disability studies perspectives.

If you would like your proposal to be considered as part of one of these thematic strands, mark this in your submission.

SESSION FORMATS:

All submissions in formats A to F below are peer reviewed.

All session formats are 90 minutes in length, including all introductions, presentations, discussion, and closure.

Proposals may be submitted for presentations in any of the following formats:

A. Individual Presentation: Individual presentations will be placed alongside three other panelists with a similar topic and a moderator chosen by the Program Committee. In general, we assume 15-20-minute presentations (if you are requesting a longer time, please specify and explain why). Presenters are required to submit 300-word abstracts for individual papers/presentations. List all co-authors, if any, and designate the presenting author(s).

A Note on Virtual Presentations: As a trial run for the 2013 conference, we will offer a small number of remote presentations slots during the face-to-face meetings. SDS is experimenting with ways to make our conference accessible to those who cannot travel while ensuring feasibility, reliability and accessibility for those present at the face-to-face meeting. Because this is a trial year, the spots are very limited in order to ensure quality and prepare for more remote and virtual options in 2014.

· Individuals may submit to present remote individual presentations in one of the following formats: video file, audio file, or audio Skype.

· Remote presentations must be made accessible according to our presentation accessibility guidelines (forthcoming) and must be submitted to the program committee one month in advance (before May 19, 2013) or they will be removed from the program.

· Presenters are responsible for the technology needed for creating accessible presentations and responding live (via audio Skype and/or Instant Message) during their scheduled presentation time.

· Proposals for remote presentations should be for individual presentations only, not panels.

· Access to these remote presentation slots will be highly competitive and will be reserved for presenters who are unable to present in person but whose presentation offers the richest, most unique and most innovative material related to the theme. If you have the resources and ability to travel and attend the conference in Orlando, we ask that you do not apply to present remotely.

· We will not consider a presentation for both face-to-face and remote presentation formats. Only those individuals who cannot attend in person should apply to present remotely.

· Please note, because remote presenters will enjoy professional exposure and opportunity for exchange and because presentations require infrastructure that is quite costly, remote presenters must register and pay a $100 registration fee.

B. Poster: Individuals or small teams will be provided a common space and time with an easel (and/or table if requested) to present a display of a research, training, service, or advocacy project, or other work. Presenters should be in attendance at the poster session. Submissions for the poster session requires a 300-word abstract, complete contact information for anyone involved in the project who will attend SDS, and a designated lead contact person. We encourage people to submit proposals specifically for the poster session. Each year, SDS proudly awards the Tanis Doe Award for the best poster.

C. Panels: Groups of 3-4 presenters (each with 15-20 minutes), a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), plus an optional discussant, are encouraged to submit proposals around a central topic, theme, or approach. Panel proposals require BOTH a 300-word proposal describing the panel AND a 300-word abstract for each paper/presentation. List all paper/presentation co-authors, identify the presenting author(s), and provide biographical information for the discussant, if one is planned.

D. Discussion: A topical discussion with a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), but with only short (5-7 min.) presentations to start discussion, if any. Submit a 500-word proposal, including a description of how the time will be used, complete contact information for the designated organizer and each participant in the discussion, and a description of their roles.

E. Workshop: Engaged application of a specific program or exercise involving a minimum of 4 planners / presenters. Proposals should include a 500-word proposal that addresses methodology and learning outcomes. Proposals must describe the format of the workshop. How will you use the time? Please describe the credentials and role of each workshop participant, designate a contact person/moderator, and provide complete contact information for each planner / presenter.

F. Performance, Film, or Art Event/Exhibit: We encourage submissions of a creative/artistic event in any media by individuals and/or groups. All proposals should clearly list at least one person who will register for and attend the conference as the event presenter/host. Submissions must include a 500-word proposal, and sample of the proposed work (up to 2,500 words of text, ten images of artistic work, demo CD, YouTube or other Internet link, DVD, or other appropriate format). Send via email at SDSprogram@disstudies.org or postal mail to the SDS Executive Office at 107 Commerce Centre Drive, Suite 204, Huntersville NC 28078 USA. Samples must reach the SDS Executive Office by the submission deadline. Please describe the background and role of each artist/participant and designate a contact person / moderator. Performers should be aware that SDS does not have the ability to provide theatrical and or stage settings in the 2013 venue. While every effort will be made to provide appropriate performance spaces, proposing performers are advised that special lighting, audiovisual equipment, and staging requests cannot be accommodated. All film entries accepted for presentation at the 2013 Conference must be provided to the SDS Executive Office on DVD not less than 30 days prior to the start of the Conference in open-captioned format, and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. As SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings, the provider of the film is fully responsible for securing any necessary permissions from trade and copyright holders for public showing. Sponsors of accepted films must register for and attend the conference, host the screening, bring documentation of rights clearance to the Conference and make it available during the film screening. SDS may request the right to schedule more than one screening at the conference. SDS program committee may request more samples and cannot return materials that are submitted for consideration.

G. Student and Other Interest Groups/Caucus/Other Meetings (non peer-reviewed): Various ad hoc and organized SDS or other non-profit groups may wish to have business, organizational, or informational meetings or some other kind of non-peer reviewed event or exhibit space at the meetings. Anyone hoping to host any such event should request space by December 1, 2012 by using the proposal submission form. After December 1st, space will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. No meetings can be planned through SDS after the early-bird deadline of April 15, 2013. All presenters at such events must register for the conference. Requests from groups not affiliated with SDS may be assessed a share of cost for space and access arrangements. Please provide the name of group, a description of the group and/or meeting purpose and format (in 300 words), and contact information for at least one organizer and a designated moderator. SDS will provide ASL/CART as needed. Organizers should contact SDS if they want catering or any other special arrangements.

A Note on Films / Film Shorts: Films and film clips may be submitted as part of any of the format categories described above. Follow the category appropriate instructions above. Participants proposing films within any of the proposal formats must be registered for and attend the conference. Ideally, film length should not exceed 60 minutes under any category, to allow time for introduction and / or comments. All film entries must be captioned and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION:

All participants must register and pay for the conference through the SDS website (http://disstudies.org/) by the early bird deadline: April 15, 2013, or they will be removed from the program. Please note: low income/student/international member presenters are eligible for modest financial aid for meeting costs. Applications for financial assistance will be available via the SDS listserv in the coming months.

Participants MAY NOT appear in more than TWO peer-reviewed conference events, A-F above (excluding evening performances, non-presenting organizer, non-presenting moderator, New Book/Work Reception). Individuals with multiple submissions will be asked to rank order their preferences for participation. The program committee will prioritize spreading program slots across the membership before offering multiple slots to any one participant.

Any participant with a book or other materials (e.g., DVD, CD) finished within the last three years (2010, 2011, 2012) is welcome to participate in the New Book/Work Reception. At least one person must register and be in attendance to host your reception display. You will be provided a table for display and the opportunity to interact with conference participants. The fee for representation in the New Book/Work Reception is $40.00. You will have the opportunity to register as an author attending the New Book Reception when you register for the conference.

Any participant is welcome to request meeting space on behalf of a group. Requests for meeting space should be made by the December 1st submission date. Requests will be accommodated thereafter on a first-come, first-served basis and must be received by the SDS Executive Office in writing as in G above to SDSprogram@disstudies.org no later than April 15, 2013.

Please indicate on the submission form whether you are willing to serve as moderator for a session.

If you intend to participate in multiple events, please complete the submission process for each event.

Participants will be notified of the status of their proposal by January 14, 2013.

Any cancellations and requests for refunds after April 15, 2013 (the early bird deadline) may incur a cancellation fee. Any participant unable to attend must notify SDS in a timely fashion.

Accessibility: In keeping with the philosophy of SDS we ask that presenters attend carefully to the accessibility of their presentations. As a prospective presenter, you agree to:

Provide hard copy and large print hard copies (17 point font or larger) of all handouts used during the presentation.

Provide an e-text version of papers, outlines and/or presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides and a summary of one’s presentation with a list of proper names, terminology and jargon in advance of their delivery (for open captioning, distribution to attendees who experience barriers to print, and to assist ASL interpreters with preparation). SDS will also use this material to create an on-line forum of all work submitted by June 10th in the hopes of facilitating a more inclusive and richer discussion on-site. After June 1, 2013 work cannot be added to the forum. Participation in this forum is optional, but strongly encouraged. This forum will be password-protected and available only to those participants who have registered for the conference. The sole purpose of this forum is to further enhance intellectual access and participation for attendees at this year’s conference by allowing attendees advance access to the content of your presentation. All participants in the on-line forum must abide by the strictest conventions regarding the intellectual property rights of authors:

Do not cite or another author’s work anywhere or in any way without the expressed, prior, written consent of individual author(s).

Do not share work posted in the forum with someone who does not have protected access to the forum (someone who has not registered for the conference).

Make allowances for a “Plan B”: consider bringing your presentation on a jump drive and projecting the text of your paper to enhance captioning.

Provide audio-description of visual images, charts and video/DVDs, and/or open or closed captioning of films and video clips.

Contribute to improving intellectual access at the conference: consider your presentation as an opportunity to engage your audience.

Avoid reading your paper.

Plan your presentation to accommodate captioning and ASL interpretation. Avoid using jargon, and slow the pace of your presentation to allow time for eye contact and spelling proper names and terminology.

AUDIO / VISUAL INFORMATION:

Presentation rooms* for the SDS 2013 Conference will be equipped with:

· 2 (two) microphones for use by presenters;

· 1 (one) LCD projector, screen, power source, and cables;

· Head table suitable to comfortably accommodate 4 (four) people;

· Both table top and podium presentation spaces; and

· Non-dedicated, WIFI Internet access (i.e. not functional for audio/video download reliably)

· SDS does not provide computers, overhead projectors, or other audio/visual equipment as a matter of course. Presenters are responsible for ensuring that presentation structure and planning works well within these audio/visual parameters.

*This information may not be applicable to film showings and some other events.

AWARDS:

The Tanis Doe Award for best poster will be judged and awarded at the poster session of the SDS conference. The Tanis Doe Award includes a cash award, a certificate of recognition, and the posting of authors names on the SDS website. The Tanis Doe Award is open to everyone at all levels of education and experience. Additionally, this year, we will award “Honorable Mentions” for posters with student first-authors at each level of education: community college, four-year college/university, and graduate school as a way of encouraging student participation in the poster session.

SDS also honors the recipients of the Senior Scholar Award, and the Irving K. Zola Award for emerging scholars at the annual conference. Please see the Call for Nominations via the SDS listserv and website. Decisions regarding these awards are made prior to the conference. Award winners will be invited to present during the program and receive recognition at the SDS business meeting. The Zola Award also includes publication in a future issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Other awards may also be presented at the SDS business meeting.

For further information contact the Program Committee of the SDS 2013 program committee at SDSprogram@disstudies.org

Submission system will open November 1, 2011 at http://www.disstudies.org Deadline for submissions: December 1, 2011

The terms ‘collaborations,’ ‘cultures,’ and ‘communities’ express many meanings on many different levels, ranging from the most intimate personal and familial relations to the broadest global and virtual arrangements.  With this year’s theme, we seek to challenge potential presenters to explore the rich and varied ways in which people with disabilities are shaped by and in turn form their own collaborations, communities, and cultures.  At the same time, we must also be mindful of the ways in which the larger, nondisabled population has — through common, dominant cultures and collaborations of power — worked both to exclude and to include disabled people in community and cultural formation and development. In addition, we hope presenters will explore the ways in which disabled people themselves have sometimes restricted access to their own communities and cultures and worked to form limited collaborations with one another. We believe that this is a time for members of SDS to consider the many ways in which we might strengthen our communities and express our dynamic cultures by recognizing not only our many commonalities, but also our tremendous and incredibly valuable diversity. Our hope is that this year’s theme will encourage members to foster spaces that value diverse expressions and analyses of class, race, gender, sexuality, sub-culture and national status within SDS and the broader communities of people with disabilities.

We offer the following broad questions to foster interdisciplinary perspectives and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration:

 * What are the many ways in which disabled people have conceptualized and enacted culture, community, and collaboration? What barriers have people with disabilities faced? How have these things changed over time?

* How have various technologies–and access to them–shaped the formation of collaborations, cultures, and communities?

* In what ways are community formation, cultural production, and collaboration bounded or shaped by geographic location, institutional formation, identity politics, and other factors?

* How have coalitional politics shaped momentum?or barriers?in disability activism?

* How does enduring poverty, racism, sexism, and the persistence of the medical model shape / limit access to opportunities for community formation, cultural production, and collaboration? How do these factors also open possibilities? How have these factors enhanced disability rights?

* How have the various disciplines within disability studies explored and analyzed community, culture, and collaboration? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?

* How have/might the various disciplines and fields within disability studies work across disciplinary boundaries to enhance the products we create?

* How have/might scholars, activists, artists, service providers, and others collaborate for the benefit of disability studies and the larger society? What factors inhibit such collaborations?

* How have/might disability studies reach out to local and national organizations and institutions to influence families, religious communities, service providers, political institutions, employers, etc.

* How does a focus on collaboration, community and culture influence research methods, theory, and the underpinnings of disability scholarship and practice?

We welcome proposals in all areas of disability studies, especially those submissions premised on this year’s theme.

This year’s program committee is introducing the idea of specific ‘strands’ that relate to the larger more general theme of the SDS conference. Each strand may have 3 or 4 related events (e.g. panels, workshops), organized to occur throughout the conference and in a way that will eliminate any overlap of sessions in an effort to facilitate a more sustained discussion of specific issues that have arisen as areas of interest within the organization.

Our planned strands this year are as follows. Others may emerge from member proposals:

– Denver / local movement history: Denver has a rich history of disability activism that offers tremendous opportunity for exploration. Denver will be hosting a disability arts festival to coincide with the Society for Disability Studies meetings.

– Religion / religious communities and disability studies: Members have identified these areas as fertile and provocative sites of challenges and possibilities that shape collaboration, culture, and community for people with disabilities.

– Power and privilege: Ongoing discussions among SDS board members, members of SDS caucuses, and others led to this strand, intended to look both at the workings of power and privilege broadly and in SDS itself.

– Professional development: This strand addresses a need identified by many of our members for professional development, including matters such as locating funding, pursuing academic and non-academic jobs, surviving the tenure track, etc?

If you would like your proposal to be considered as part of these thematic strands, mark this in your submission.

SESSION FORMATS:

All submissions in formats A to F below are peer reviewed.

All session formats are 90 minutes in length, including all introductions, presentations, discussion, and closure.

Proposals may be submitted for presentations in any of the following formats:

A. Individual Presentation: Individual presentations will be placed alongside three other panelists with a similar topic and a moderator chosen by the Program Committee. In general, we assume 15-20-minute presentations (if you are requesting a longer time, please specify and explain why). Presenters are required to submit 300-word abstracts for individual papers/presentations. List all co-authors, if any, and designate the presenting author(s).

B. Poster: Individuals or small teams will be provided a common space and time with an easel (and/or table if requested) to present a display of a research, training, service, or advocacy project, or other work. Presenters should be in attendance at the poster session. 

Submissions for the poster session requires a 300-word abstract, complete contact information for anyone involved in the project who will attend SDS, and a designated lead contact person. We encourage people to submit proposals specifically for the poster session. Each year, SDS proudly awards the Tanis Doe Award for the best poster. 

Additionally, this year, we will award ‘Honorable Mentions’ for posters with student first-authors at each level of education:  K-12, community college, four-year college/university, and graduate school as a way of encouraging student participation in the poster session.

C. Panels: Groups of 3-4 presenters (each with 15-20 minutes), a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), plus an optional discussant, are encouraged to submit proposals around a central topic, theme, or approach. Panel proposals require BOTH a 300-word proposal describing the panel AND a 300-word abstract for each paper/presentation. List all paper/presentation co-authors, identify the presenting author(s), and provide biographical information for the discussant, if one is planned.

D. Discussion: A topical discussion with a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), but no formal presentations. Submit a 500-word proposal, including a description of how the time will be used, complete contact information for the designated organizer and each participant in the discussion, and a description of their roles.

E. Workshop: Engaged application of a specific program or exercise involving a minimum of 4 planners / presenters. Proposals should include a 500-word proposal that addresses methodology and learning outcomes. Please describe the background and role of each workshop participant, designate a contact person/moderator, and provide complete contact information for each planner / presenter.

F. Performance, Film, or Art Event: We encourage submissions of an artistic performance by individuals and/or groups. Submissions must include a 500-word proposal, and sample of the proposed performance (up to 2,500 words of text, ten images of artistic work, demo CD, YouTube or other Internet link, DVD, or other appropriate format). 

Send via email at SDS2012@disstudies.org or postal mail to the SDS Executive Office at 107 Commerce Centre Drive, Suite 204, Huntersville NC 28078 USA. Samples must reach the SDS Executive Office by the submission deadline. Please describe the background and role of each artist/participant and designate a contact person / moderator. 

Performers should be aware that SDS does not have the ability to provide theatrical and or stage settings in the 2012 venue.  While every effort will be made to provide appropriate performance spaces, proposing performers are advised that special lighting, audiovisual equipment, and staging requests cannot be accommodated. All film entries accepted for presentation at the 2012 Conference must be provided to the SDS Executive Office on DVD not less than 30 days prior to the start of the Conference in open-captioned format, and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. 

As SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings, the provider of the film is fully responsible for securing any necessary permissions from trade and copyright holders for public showing. 

Sponsors of accepted films must register for and attend the conference, host the screening, and bring documentation of rights clearance to the Conference and have it available during the time of film showing. SDS may request the right to schedule more than one screening at the conference. SDS program committee may request more samples and cannot return materials that are submitted for consideration.

G. Student interest group/Caucus/Other (non peer-reviewed): Various ad hoc and organized SDS or other non-profit groups may wish to have business, organizational, or informational meetings or some other kind of non-peer reviewed event or exhibit space at the meetings. Anyone hoping to host any such event should request space by December 1, 2011 by using the proposal submission form. After December 1st, space will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. No meetings can be planned through SDS after the early-bird deadline of April 15, 2012. 

All presenters at such events must register for the conference. 

Requests from groups not affiliated with SDS may be assessed a share of cost for space and access arrangements. Please provide the name of group, a description of the group and/or meeting purpose and format (in 300 words), and contact information for at least one organizer and a designated moderator.

– A Special Note on Films / Film Shorts: Films and film clips may be submitted as part of any of the format categories described above. 

Follow the appropriate instructions above. Participants proposing films within any of the proposal formats must be registered for and attend the conference. Ideally, film length should not exceed 60 minutes under any category, to allow time for introduction and / or comments. All film entries must be captioned and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION:

– All participants must register for the conference by the early bird deadline: April 15, 2011, or they will be removed from the program. 

Please note: low income/student/international member presenters are eligible for modest financial aid for meeting costs. Applications for financial assistance will be available via the SDS listserv in the coming months.

– Participants MAY NOT appear in more than TWO peer-reviewed conference events (excluding evening performances, book reception, non-presenting organizer, non-presenting panel moderator, New Book Reception). Individuals with multiple submissions will be asked to rank order their preferences for participation. The program committee will prioritize spreading program slots across the membership before offering multiple slots to any one participant.

– Any participant with a book or other materials (e.g., DVD, CD) published within the last three years (2010, 2011, 2012) is welcome to participate in the New Book Reception. Authors will be provided a table for display and the opportunity to interact with conference participants. The fee for representation in the New Book Reception is $40.00. You may register and pay for your participation as a part of your overall Conference registration, not through this proposal portal.

– Any participant is welcome to request meeting space on behalf of a group. Requests for meeting space should be made by the December 1st submission date. Requests will be accommodated thereafter on a first-come, first-served basis and must be received by the SDS Executive Office in writing to SDS2012@disstudies.org no later than May 1, 2012.

– Please indicate on the submission form whether you are willing to serve as moderator for a session.

– If you intend to participate in multiple events, please complete the submission process for each event.

– Participants will be notified of the status of their proposal by March 1, 2012.

– Any cancellations and requests for refunds after April 15, 2012 (the early bird deadline) may incur a cancellation fee. Any participant unable to attend must notify SDS in a timely fashion.

– Accessibility: In keeping with the philosophy of SDS we ask that presenters attend carefully to the accessibility of their presentations. As a prospective presenter, you agree to:

o Provide hard copy and large print hard copies (17 point font or larger) of all handouts used during the presentation.

o Provide an e-text version of papers and / or presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides and a summary of one’s presentation with a list of proper names, terminology and jargon in advance of their delivery (for open captioning, distribution to attendees with print disabilities, and to assist ASL interpreters with preparation). SDS will also use this material to create an on-line forum of all work submitted by June 10th in the hopes of facilitating a more inclusive and richer discussion on-site. After June 17, 2012 work cannot be added to the forum. Participation in this forum is optional, but strongly encouraged. This forum will be password-protected and available only to those participants who have registered for the conference.

o Make allowances for a ‘Plan B’: consider bringing your presentation on a jump drive and projecting the text of your paper to enhance captioning.

o Provide audio-description of visual images, charts and video/DVDs, and/or open or closed captioning of films and video clips.

o Contribute to improving intellectual access at the conference: 

consider your presentation as an opportunity to engage your audience.

– Avoid reading your paper.

– Plan your presentation to accommodate captioning and ASL interpretation. Avoid using jargon, and slow the pace of your presentation to allow time for eye contact and spelling proper names and terminology.

AUDIO / VISUAL INFORMATION:

Presentation rooms* for the SDS 2012 Conference will be equipped with:

– 2 (two) microphones for use by presenters; 1 (one) LCD projector, screen, power source, and cables; Head table suitable to comfortably accommodate 4 (four) people; Both table top and podium presentation spaces;  and Non-dedicated, WIFI Internet access (i.e. not functional for audio/video download reliably) SDS does not provide computers, overhead projectors, or other audio/visual equipment as a matter of course.  Presenters are responsible for ensuring that presentation structure and planning works well within these audio/visual parameters.

*This information is not applicable to film showings.

AWARDS:

The Tanis Doe Award for best poster will be judged and awarded at the poster session of the SDS conference.  The Tanis Doe Award includes a cash award, a certificate of recognition, and the posting of authors names on the SDS website.  The Tanis Doe Award is open to everyone at all levels of education and experience.  Additionally, this year, we will award ‘Honorable Mentions’ for posters with student first-authors at each level of education:  K-12, community college, four-year college/university, and graduate school as a way of encouraging student participation in the poster session.

SDS also honors the recipients of the Senior Scholar Award and the Irving K. Zola Award for emerging scholars at the annual conference. 

Please see the Call for Nominations via the SDS listserv and website. 

Decisions regarding these awards are made prior to the conference. 

Award winners will be invited to present during the program and receive recognition at the SDS business meeting. The Zola Award also includes publication in a future issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Other awards may also be presented at the SDS business meeting.

SUBMISSION AGREEMENT:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.  YOU ARE AGREEING TO ALL OF THESE CLAUSES.

By submitting to SDS 2012 in Denver, you give SDS full permission to publish your abstracts, photograph you, publish such photographs on the SDS web site or other publications, audio or video record your presentation, transcribe the presentation for access needs, and transmit or post and archive such recordings and transcriptions via live-streaming, podcast form, or any other electronic means. If submitting on behalf of multiple presenters and authors, you certify that each presenter and author has granted his/her permission to Society for Disability Studies for purposes described in this paragraph. By giving this permission, you understand that you retain full rights to your work but give SDS the right to use your presentation in the context of the 2012 conference, including (but not limited to) charging attendees and others for access to derivative audio or video products, recordings or podcasts.

For further information contact Michael Rembis and/or Allison Carey, co-chairs of the SDS 2012 program committee at marembis@buffalo.edu and accare@ship.edu.

23rd Annual Conference – San José California, Doubletree Hotel, June 15-18, 2011

[Disability justice is] not self-sufficiency but self-determination, not independence but interdependence, not functional separateness but personal connection, not physical autonomy but human community.

–Paul K. Longmore

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and 2008 witnessed both the passage of the ADA Amendments Act and, on the international stage, the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD). In passing the ADA Amendments Act, the U.S. Congress sought to redress nearly twenty years of rulings that severely narrowed the scope of protections afforded in the original bill. The Convention formally marks a paradigm shift towards considering people with disabilities as subjects who must be able to exercise their own rights, rather than objects of medical inquiry or charitable intervention. These developments seem to suggest gains in the history of disability rights, and yet many disability activists contend that real gains can only be made if disability is conceptualized as part of an intersecting network of historic and contemporary power structures that must be addressed holistically and systemically.

We invite conference participants to reconsider the issues of rights and access in light of local, national and global commitments and resistance to achieving disability justice. We offer the following broad questions in a variety of disciplines and encourage interdisciplinary perspectives:

* How is social justice conceptualized? What competing visions emerge within these conceptualizations?

* What tensions have hampered social justice gains for people with disabilities?

* How might disability-based conceptualizations of social justice complicate and enhance other issues of social justice?

* How have coalitional politics shaped momentum—or barriers—to achieving disability justice?

* How do various technologies—and access to them—shape coalitions and enhance or hinder progress?

* How are or how can societies address the enduring poverty that people with disabilities face throughout the world? How does poverty shape / limit access to opportunities?

* How might institutions and agencies be transformed to better ensure justice for individuals with disabilities and their communities?

* How might community engagement serve the cause of enhancing disability justice?

* How does cultural context shape a local agenda for rights and access?

* How does the intersection of disability studies with other critical scholarship (critical race studies, gender/feminist studies, queer studies, immigrant studies, post-colonial studies) promote more nuanced understandings of social justice?

* How can and how do liberatory textual and / or performative practices enact disability justice?

* What liberatory moments, paradigms, practices, and aspirations have shaped the path(s) towards disability justice?

We welcome proposals in all areas of disability studies, as well as submissions premised on this year’s theme.

Held at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Society for Disability Studies is pleased to announce a call for proposals for its annual convention, to be held June 17-20, 2009, in Tucson, Arizona, at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort.  The theme for this convention is “It’s ‘Our’ Time: Pathways to and From Disability Studies—Past, Present, Future.”  Time, in all its forms, conceptualizations, and manifestations, will be the central focus of the conference, though proposals on any topic relevant to Disability Studies are welcomed.  We imagine a number of different ways of approaching the issue of time, a concept critical to all aspects of disability experience and culture:

o   Cultural:  Is there such a thing as “disability time”?  How do different cultural constructions and experiences of time affect people with disabilities?

o   Economic:  How is time a form of “capital,” both for people with disabilities and those involved in the “disability industry?”  For people with disabilities who must interact with ableist norms of time in the labor force?

o   Political:  What is disability’s “moment” in 2009, a time when, whatever the outcome of elections in the U.S. and elsewhere, “change,” a temporal and political idea, is declaimed and echoed in much rhetoric.  What current issues are particularly “timely” for disability studies—and how are such issues tied to past and future?

o   Educational:  How do issues of time, including controversies around and resistance to accommodations around time for people with disabilities, play themselves out in educational environments?

o   Psychological/Philosophical:  What does phenomenology’s enduring interest in internal time/ consciousness have to offer to understanding the intersection of disability experience and cross-ability inter-subjectivity?  How is individual experience of time related to such realms as social and community psychology?  Do different disabilities lead to different psychologies and/or philosophies of time?

o   Historical:  History is, in a sense, the “biggest” unit of time.   How do different eras view the role of time in disability experience? What is the relationship between disability history and temporality?  Both studies of specific historical moments of disability and cross-historical studies are welcome.

o   The Arts:    How is time represented in literary, visual, musical, performing, and mediated forms of art?  How are questions of duration and endurance crucial to the roles of artists with disabilities in the

social and cultural domains of the arts?

o   Medicine/Science:  How do issues of longevity, physical and psychological capability, and social regulation of the lives of people with disabilities affect access and opportunities?  How are medicine and science reconfiguring time and creating new conceptions of futures?

These are only suggestions of possible directions proposals around the convention theme might take—we imagine members will go off in many more directions as well.  After all, it’s “our” time.

Formats – We welcome proposals in the following formats:

o   Individual:  Individuals are encouraged to submit proposals for individual papers and/or presentations.  In general, we assume 15-20 minute length limits for individuals (if you are requesting a longer format, be sure to specify and explain why).  Word limit for individual proposal: 200 words

o   Panels: Groups of individuals are encouraged to submit proposals around a central topic, theme, or approach.  Such proposals should aim for a total length of no more than 75 minutes, including time for

responses, discussion, and questions.  Please include names of all panelists, names or presentations, and a brief description of each paper/presentation.  Word limit for panel proposal:  500 words.

o   Didactic/Short Courses:  We welcome proposals for two kinds of “teaching” programs.  The former, didactic sessions, should be 75 minutes in length, featuring either one or a small number of presenters, who will “teach” an audience about some important aspect of disability studies.  Proposals should also include details about materials provided for audience members and ways in which audience members will be involved interactively.  Short courses will follow the same organization, but may be of greater scope, with a double session scheduled.  A rationale for such a scope should be included as part of the proposal.  Didactic sessions and short courses on issues surrounding teaching disability studies are particularly encouraged.

Word limit:  200 words

o   Poster Session:  There will be a poster session, as has become traditional at the conference, at which individuals or small teams will be provided a common space to present a visual display of research;

presenters should plan on being in attendance at the poster session, in order to amplify the visual display and to interact with viewers.  We encourage people to submit proposals specifically for the poster

session.  Word limit:  200 words

o   Artistic/Performance Events:   We encourage submissions of an artistic or performance nature—everything from gallery showings of visual arts to musical concerts to theatrical, literary, and comedy

performances to dance/movement pieces.  These may be proposed by individuals and/or groups, and may or may not fit into the standard time formats specified for other proposals.  Word limit:  200 words

o   Town Halls/Debates:  We encourage proposal of town hall sessions (primary speakers with opportunity for “town” involvement in discussion) or structured debates on a proposition (with assigned affirmative and negative speakers, followed by open discussion). 

Again, we envision these as 75 minute sessions, but are open to other proposals.  We welcome lunchtime roundtables and other innovative formats as well—the more inventive the better!  Word limit:  200 words

Accessibility in presentations is central to the philosophy of SDS.  Presenters should explore ways to make physical, sensory, and intellectual access a fundamental part of their presentation.  Presenters must make all printed materials used during the presentation available to audience in standard (12 point font) as well as in large (18 point font) print.  Hard copy images, charts and other visual representations must be captioned or described in a manner that conveys their meaning without having the need to look at it.  Video clips,

films and all visual images must include open or close captioning as well as audio description.

Presentations should also be planned so that their delivery will accommodate open-captioning and ASL translation. In order to facilitate ASL interpretation and open captioning, drafts of accepted presentations will be due via e-mail by May 1, 2009. If you have questions about making your presentation accessible, please contact the Program Co-chairs at sdsconference2009@yahoo.com.

PROPOSALS ARE DUE NO LATER THAN JANUARY 15, 2009.  Instructions for submitting proposals and other information about the process (including an electronic submission form) are available on the SDS website at the 2009 SDS conference site.  Questions about the application process or other administrative matters may be directed to conference@disstudies.org.

Conference co-chairs for the 2009 convention are:  Christine McCohnell, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Joan Ostrove, Macalester College, and Bruce Henderson, Ithaca College.  Questions may be directed to the co-chairs at sdsconference2009@yahoo.com.

Proposals will be reviewed by the conference Program Committee: Christine Komoroski-McCohnell, Bruce Henderson, Joan Ostrove (co-chairs); Shilpaa Anand, Susan Baglieri, Christopher Bell, Allison Carey, Michael Chemers, Jim Ferris, Deborah Little, Carol Marfisi, Akemi Nishida, Michael Rembis, and Cindy Wu.