MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

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Disability Studies

Area chairs

Meredith Guthrie (University of Pittsburgh)
Rebecca Stone Gordon (American University)

Disability Studies draws on work done in fields as diverse as history, health sciences, English, anthropology, women’s studies, and education. Papers exploring the lived experience of disability, social constructions of disability, or the emerging and evolving field of disability studies itself are all welcome.

Some possible questions to consider: What gives a human life value? How does a culture’s attitudes about disability reveal its most basic assumptions and ideologies? How does the lived experience of disability vary according to class, gender, race, sexuality, or culture? How have our definitions of disability changed over time? How does the media (mis?)represent people with disabilities? What is often left out when we talk/teach disability studies? Roundtables that focus on specific forms of activism or engagement, accommodation challenges in higher education, or strategies for challenging traditional models of disability are equally welcome.

The Disability Studies Area welcomes work from across disciplines and is happy to work with other Areas to co-sponsor paper panels or roundtables on relevant topics, for example: panels that focus on disability representation in a specific work or body of works in film, television, interactive media, or literature.

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