Events

Winter 2024 Fall Core Lab Meetings

Core Lab #1: Thursday, January 18, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Small Grant Project Presentation & Discussion- “Towards a Pedagogy of the Psychiatrized: Mad Inclusion through Archives” with Dr. Efrat Gold and Wilbur Greer

Core Lab #2: Thursday, February 1, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Presentation – “Breakdown: Crip maintenance, repair, and kinship against socioeconomic abandonment” with Dr. Anne McGuire and Dr. Kelly Fritsch

Core Lab #3: Monday, February 12, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Presentation – “Disability Aesthetics in the Theater” with Dr. Katherine Schaap Williams, Kim Weild (Director, Titus Andronicus, The Apothetae residency at the Public Theater [NYC]) and Regan Linton (Actor, Titus Andronicus, The Apothetae residency at the Public Theater [NYC])

Core Lab #4: Thursday, February 29, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Presentation- “The Movement of blindness in dance: Disturbing the flow of accessibility through Immersive Descriptive Audio” with Dr. Devon Healey

Core Lab #5: Monday, Mar. 11, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Presentation – “Wraps of sorrow: Historical and contemporary utterances of “I’m sorry” before, at, and following the birth of a baby with Down syndrome” with Madeleine DeWelles

Core Lab #6: Wednesday, March 27, 3-5pm (Zoom) – Dissertation Presentation & Discussion – “Depression, Conflict, and the End of History: Anglophone Narrative Literature, 1989–2020” with Burstow scholarship awardee Carson Hammond- CANCELLED

Core Lab #7: Thursday, April 18, 2-3:45 pm (Zoom) – Presentation- ‘Convivial Scholarship’; TWIG; the Crip Technoscience Studies Network with Dr. Zoe Wool

Tri-Campus Disability Studies Visioning Workshop

Thursday May 2nd and Friday May 3rd, 12:00-4:00 pm

In-person at the Saint George campus, Location TBA (Zoom available as needed for access)

Captioning provided

Workshop Description

This workshop is for faculty and graduate students from across the three campuses for a two-day workshop to map the ongoing research in critical disability studies across the three campuses of the University of Toronto.

The workshop will include discussion of ongoing and future research themes, a review of recent events and working groups, and collaborative visioning for future directions for our interdisciplinary conversation. This conversation will serve to strengthen our network and help shape future programming.

Email cgds.utsc@utoronto.ca to learn more

Ongoing Groups

learn more about Ongoing Groups

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY for PALESTINE: A 3-PART READING SERIES

Please join us in a 3-part Reading Series based on the Medical Anthropology for Palestine, a resource compiled by critical medical anthropologists to integrate Palestine into classrooms and syllabi in medical anthropology, disability studies, global health, environmental health, and beyond. Drawing on expertise, research, and activism, the reading series is premised on the belief that Palestine is not only an urgent political struggle, but also an important site of knowledge production, with particular relevance to disability studies.

This reading series is open to all U of T students, as well as faculty and staff. No prior knowledge about disability studies or Palestine is required or assumed.

The series will meet May 17, 14, 21 2024, from 11am-1pm; please read the readings for each meeting in advance.

Please RSVP here to receive a list of selected readings, and Zoom links / in person details to attend the meetings.

Access questions or concerns, please contact the host via cgds.utsc@utoronto.ca. Auto-generated captioning for all participants and masks for in person participants will be provided.

CGDSxQTRL Writing Circle -Tuesdays 10am-noon beginning September 26th 2023, via Zoom or in-person. Join faculty and graduate students for a drop-in co-writing group. Hosted by QTRL 2023-2024 Faculty Fellow & CGDS Director Cassandra Hartblay. Email Cassandra (cassandra.hartblay@utoronto.ca) to join or for more information.

Working Group – Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Policy: A Disability Studies Perspective – Convened by Prof. Marlene Goldman – email Prof. Goldman (mgoldman@chass.utoronto.ca to join for the next meeting on Friday, Nov. 17th from 1-3 pm.

Co-Sponsored Campus Events

A screening of the award winning documentary In Fire Through Dry Grass and artist talk back with Reality Poets
Mar. 5 2024, 1-3pm (EST)
In person

Presented by Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity, New College and co-sponsored by CGDS

About the film:

On a tiny island in NYC, a group of Black and brown disabled artists fight Covid and the city to protect the lives of 500 vulnerable nursing home residents.

Learn more: https://www.firethroughdrygrass.com/

All are welcome

Questions/Access Needs: cses.director@utoronto.ca

Organizing for Survival: Disability Advocacy during Russia’s War Against Ukraine, from refugees to veterans
Wednesday Oct. 18, 12-1:30pm (EST)
Online

Presented by the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine and the Centre for Global Disability Studies at the University of Toronto

Disability advocacy is an often-overlooked arena of human rights civic organizing. This roundtable brings together three researchers with new and on-the-ground knowledge of the impacts of the war on disability advocacy and policy, and on disabled people and their families. Drawing on expertise, research, and activism, panelists will discuss experiences of wounded Ukrainian soldiers; the impact of the war on disabled civilians; and how disability advocacy networks and organizations led by disabled people have responded, in both Ukraine and in neighboring Poland to support disabled refugees. Taken together, a new picture of disability experience in war time begins to emerge, as well as a deeply changed political landscape for disability advocacy. What are the lived experiences of living with or acquiring disability in Ukraine (or of fleeing Ukraine) in war time? How are disability advocacy leaders understanding the task at hand? What is needed now? What global networks or historical examples are useful in a situation like this one?

Participants:

Dr. Magdalena Szarota, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

Expert and activist in Polish disability advocacy movements, responding to Ukrainian refugee crisis since 2022

Hanna Zaremba, Department of Social Anthropology, Ethnology Institute of Ukraine, and Activist with OPD Fight for Right

Research studying Ukrainian disability activism in the context of the 2022 invasion

Ivan Shmatko, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta

Researcher conducting a project on experiences of wounded Ukrainian soldiers as part of the veteran human rights organization Pryntsyp

Chair:

Dr. Cassandra Hartblay, CERES and Centre for Global Disability Studies, University of Toronto

Access: AI captioning, ASL intepretation, and Ukrainian intrepretation provided. Email with access requests (cassandra.hartblay@utoronto.ca).

Feel (in) the gaps. (In)visible disabilities
A Virtual Tour of Transnational Contemporary Art Exhibition and Panel Discussion
Tuesday Oct. 3, 1-3pm (EST)
Hybrid event

Featuring artists Letícia Barreto, Cinzia Greco, Maica Gugolati, Jaime Lee Loy, and Gabrielle Le Roux. Presented by The Program for Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity and The Program for the Study of the United States in collaboration with transnational colleagues, and cosponsored by Centre for Global Disability Studies, among others.

In person at U of T

Core Lab Meetings

Biweekly meetings that cement the core of the CGDS community: join us to catch up and have a coffee, discuss an article, or share work in progress. It’s okay if you can only attend part of the meeting. Core Lab meetings are held during the UofT fall and winter term season. Core Lab meetings always have AI captioning; other access elements will be arranged upon request. New folks welcome – please email cgds.utsc@utoronto.ca so that we can help to welcome you to your first core lab meeting.

Note: Core Lab is currently only open to members of the U of T community (graduate students, undergraduate students by invitation, faculty, post-docs, recent alumni and researchers with a current U of T affiliation).

Critical Conversations

Our flagship event series brings together scholars, activists, and researchers to discuss timely issues that impact global disability justice. These are public-facing events, and registration information will be posted as the event approaches.

Ongoing Groups

In a given year, CGDS faculty or graduate students may convene a working group or writing group on a particular topic and invite members to join.