Society for Disability Studies: Call for Proposals

Society for Disability Studies
SDS 2010, 22nd Annual Conference Call for Proposals
 
Dates: June 2-5, 2010
Host: Institute on Disabilities, Temple University
Location: Howard Gittis Student Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Submission Forms: All proposals must use the SDS CFP submission form available at the 2010 SDS conference site

Proposal Deadline: Midnight EST, December 15, 2009

THEME: DISABILITY IN THE GEO-POLITICAL IMAGINATION

The development of global studies has increasingly called for a cross-cultural and comparative approach to questions of marginalization, stigma, diaspora and resettlement, labor and exploitation, climate change, and the world-ranging production of impairment and disability from violence, inhumane treatment, crumbling infrastructure, and environmental degradation. A significant amount of scholarship also examines new resistance cultures and the galvanization of global networks as members of diverse disability communities try to navigate productive collaborations across newly wired cybernetic systems and claim the possibilities offered by globalization. New opportunities and new problems abound around forging transnational communities, increased mobility, health and charity tourism, the implementation of universal rights, increased transparency of states and organizations, better community-based rehabilitation, and more varied work possibilities.

This year's Society for Disability Studies conference features the theme "Disability in the Geo-Political Imagination" to spur ongoing efforts in interdisciplinary analyses. Such a theme arrives at a timely moment in the wake of the signing of the United Nations Charter on the Rights of People with Disabilities by leaders in 140 nations (including, most recently and somewhat belatedly, the United States). As a result of the emergence and ratification of this convention, disability has become a more visible topic within the public sphere. Nations, perhaps including the United States, that previously undervalued disabled populations now contend with what it means to be truly inclusive. Likewise, Disability-advocacy organizations now seek to make further claims upon the state as a guarantor of rights and liberties. This SDS conference theme includes proactive responses to the critique that disabled populations, particularly those which are disproportionately poor and people of color, are ill represented, under-analyzed, and under-theorized, in the context of global studies. As the local and global may be seen as inflecting each other, so can questions of disability, race, class, and gender.

Disability studies explores the distance that exists between popular representations of disability as tragic embodiment, and politically informed disability cultures that define themselves against such devaluing views. Authors of panel and paper proposals will ideally feature new ways of conceptualizing people who experience disability as social actors connected or disconnected on a global scale. In particular, the SDS Program Committee seeks entries from those areas of inquiry that resist, revise, and re-imagine contemporary understandings of human differences and embodiment such as critical race studies, feminist/womanist studies, class-based analyses, queer studies, trans-gender studies, and other critical perspectives linked to social justice initiatives.

While proposals for any topic are always welcome at SDS, we offer a suggested theme each year. This year's theme encourages submissions that attend to local conditions, including those in our host city of Philadelphia, within a global context and to cultures of empowerment and resistance within the complexity of global exploitation and opportunities.

The board of the Society for Disability Studies recognizes the unfortunate scheduling conflict of this year's annual conference with that of the Canadian Disability Studies Association. In keeping with this year's theme of the "Geo-Political Imagination," and in order to encourage continuing productive exchange of knowledge across our borders, both groups are making all efforts to adopt innovative strategies for connecting the events virtually through live interactive video and special programming. Look for an addendum to this CFP with the details of these opportunities in the next few weeks.
 
Questions about the application process or other administrative matters may be directed to the SDS Executive Office at < conference @disstudies.org >.

Overall questions can be directed to either of the Program Committee Co-Chairs:

David Mitchell, <dmitchel@temple.edu> Temple University
Devva Kasnitz <devva@earthlink.net> University of California, Berkeley

To read the full CFP, review application guidelines, or to submit a proposal, visit: http ://www.disstudies.org/conference/2010/cfp

We look forward to your submissions!