My weekly events this week are in the UK & the US. Again, we don’t endorse these events, and they are things I come across in my travels round the internet, so these are not the only events going on my any means!

UK – US – Calls for Papers

UK:

SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT
Tuesday September 14th 5pm – Douglas Jefferson Room, School of English, University of Leeds
Advance notice that the poet and critic Michael Davidson will be speaking in the School of English on “Pregnant Men: Modernism, Disability, and Biofuturity in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood”

Professor Davidson teaches at the Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego. His research interests are in the areas of Modern Poetry, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies and Disability Studies. His most recent book is Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body (2008)

ALL WELCOME

For further details contact Bridget Bennett: b.k.g.bennett AT leeds.ac.uk or Stuart Murray: s.f.murray AT leeds.ac.uk

What is Disability Hate Crime?: A Historical Exploration of Crimes Involving Disabled People

A Seminar Presentation by Dr. Alex Tankard

Hosted by the Centre for Culture & Disability Studies, Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University

Time: 2.15pm – 3.45pm
Date: Wednesday, October 13th 2010

The 2007 CPS Policy for Prosecuting cases of Disability Hate Crime states that ‘It is important to make a distinction between a disability hate crime and a crime committed against a disabled person because of his/her perceived vulnerability’ (9).
Under the social model of disability, is this distinction helpful, harmful, or simply meaningless? What is the difference between assaulting a disabled person while making ‘a derogatory or insulting comment about disabled people’ (8), and assaulting a disabled person because social structures and cultural representations have led you to believe that they cannot defend themselves or obtain justice? Should the first be regarded as a politicised crime, and the second as politically neutral?
In 1884, in the Wild West mining camp of Leadville, Colorado, a disabled man shot a nondisabled man and then pleaded self-defence. The details of this obscure and complex case meet none of the criteria outlined by the 2007 Policy, and yet the disabled participant and contemporary press reportage exposed aspects of the judicial system that marginalised and discriminated against citizens with physical impairments.
In this seminar, Dr. Tankard will use the 1884 incident to ask whether the 2007 Policy’s determination to distinguish between ‘hate crimes’ and crimes committed against vulnerable people perpetuates confusion about the real causes and meanings of disability. Dr. Tankard will argue that the most insidious and intractable social injustice may be found not in the open ‘hostility’ and name-calling classed as hate crime, but in the social structures that disable people who have impairments and render them appealing targets for crime of any kind. Ultimately, she will ask whether the CPS’s decision to politicise one set of crimes while depoliticising others illustrates the continuing failure of official and public discourses to comprehend truly the social model of disability.

The CCDS Research Forum is free of charge, but attendees are required to register by sending an email to Heather Barker dbsw AT hope.ac.uk, using “Alex Tankard” as the subject line.

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE FOR SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH

Inaugural conference: Social Work and Social Care Research – Innovation, Interdisciplinarity and Impact

website

St Catherine’s College, Oxford

23rd-25th March 2011

The first of a major annual series, the conference will bring together researchers and research users from across Europe and beyond to present and exchange research ideas, findings, developments and applications. The inaugural conference aims to provide a forum open to all who are engaged and interested in social work and social care research, including service users. Check out their website for more information. Please note that abstracts must be submitted by midnight on 20th September 2010.

US (via Disability Law Center):

International Forum on Disability Management
Location: Los Angeles, California; Date(s): September 20-22, 2010.

2010 National Self-Advocacy Conference
Location: Kansas City, Missouri; Date(s): September 23-26, 2010.

Accessing Higher Ground – Accessible Media, Web, and Technology Conference

Location: Boulder, Colorado; Date(s): November 15-19, 2010.

Calls for Papers:

Festival of International Conferences on Caregiving, Disability, Aging, & Technology
Abstract Submission Deadline: December 1, 2010.

Special Issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on the Topic of Mediated Communication

Abstract Submission Deadline: December 15, 2010.

As always, these events are things that I come across in my travels through the internet, and are not endorsed by us, nor can we answer any questions about them.

Protests (UK) – US Conferences & Events – UK Events & Conferences

Protests:

Join us to protest at the Tory Party Conference – Birmingham, England, on 3 October

We will have our own disabled people’s section of a legal organised march to protest against Tory Party attacks on disabled people. Please join us and ask others to come too.

When – Sunday, October 3rd, 2010.

Where- International Convention Centre, Birmingham

Rally- noon

March- 1 p.m.

If the weather is good we will meet at the fountain in Chamberlain Square at 11.30 am and walk to the ICC together otherwise, or for anyone who finds it easier, we will meet inside the ICC in the room where the rally will take place.

If anyone has any specific needs which they need to have met in order to attend this protest march please contact – linda_burnip@yahoo.co.uk

US Conferences and Events (via Disability, Law & Policy)

International Forum on Disability Management
Location: Los Angeles, California; Date(s): September 20-22, 2010.

IFDM 2010 will advance disability management knowledge and initiatives to:

• Realize the aspirations of people with disabilities to find and maintain meaningful employment.
• Support employers in achieving productive and stable workforces.
• Empower human resource, workers’ compensation, and disability specialists to accomplish desired outcomes.
• Achieve public policy initiatives that provide better social protection and economic empowerment for everyone.

2010 National Self-Advocacy Conference
Location: Kansas City, Missouri; Date(s): September 23-26, 2010.

This year’s conference is SABE’s 10th Annual Self Advocacy Conference. This year’s conference theme is “Jazz It Up: Celebrating 20 Years of Self Advocates Being Empowered,” which marks the anniversary of the ADA and acknowledges the last twenty years of the self advocacy movement in the United States! For the last decade, this conference has been the largest gathering of self advocates in the United States. The conference is estimated to bring 1,000+ self advocates together to learn, collaborate, problem solve, and celebrate the past two decades of the self advocacy movement.

Accessing Higher Ground – Accessible Media, Web, and Technology Conference
Location: Boulder, Colorado; Date(s): November 15-19, 2010.

Accessing Higher Ground is the official conference of the Access Technology Higher Edication Network (ATHEN). It focuses on the implementation and benefits of Assistive Technology and Universal Design in the university, work and public setting for people with sensory, physical and learning disabilities. Other topics include legal and policy issues, including ADA and 508 compliance, and making media and information resources – including Web pages and library resources – accessible.

UK Events:

The University of Dundee, School of Education, Social Work & Community Education will be hosting a seminar by Dr Fiona Kumari Campbell, Senior Lecturer in Disability Studies,Griffith University, Australia : “Out of the Shadows”: Resilience and Living with Ableism

James Overboe (2007) and Fiona Kumari Campbell (2008, 2009) noted that disabled people experience reality through the prism of a ‘normative shadow’ which assumes the preferability of abledness and holds that disability is inherently negative and harmful. Whilst disabled people may experience periodic acute attacks on the integrity of their person in the form of hate crimes & the denial of access to goods and services, Campbell (2009) has argued that day-to-day, business as usual experiences of ableism not only wear disabled people and their families down, but can lead to internalised ableism. This seminar extends Campbell’s work through a discussion about the strategy to promote resiliency skills in the lives of disabled people to firstly reduce the effects of ableist harms/oppression and secondly as a tactic of resistance.

13th September 2010, at 6.30 pm in the Dalhousie Building
All welcome

Further information about room details etc, contact Dr Murray Simpson, email: m.k.simpson@dundee.ac.uk

As always, please let me know about events! anna AT disabledfeminists DOT com

As always, these events are not endorsed by us in any way, and unfortunately I can’t tell you any more about them than what is at the applicable links.

Also, things are a little wonky on my end because of Hurricane Earl, but both Don and I are fine, having made it back to our apartment during a lull in the storm. But I’m a bit scattered right now!

Memorial Events (All in North America) – Conferences (All in Europe) – Art Show/Call for Submissions of Art (All in North America)

Memorial Events:

Canada:

Unveiling Ceremony
Memorial Wall Plaques Dedicated to Patient Labourers Past

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the oldest part of the patient built boundary wall, constructed in 1860, which stands on the south side of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) at 1001 Queen Street West, Toronto. These patient-built walls, along with the 1888-89 walls on the east and west sides, are a testament to the abilities of people whose unpaid labour was central to the operation of asylums in the Province of Ontario during the 19th & 20th centuries.

Join us as we unveil a series of nine memorial plaques in remembrance.

Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 1:00 p.m.
Corner of Queen Street West and Shaw Street.

A tour of the wall and all nine plaques will follow the dedication ceremony.

Sponsored by Psychiatric Survivor Archives, Toronto (PSAT), CAMH,
and the generous support of many community donors.

For more information or media inquiries, please call 416-595-6015; 416-661-9975. (via NEADS)

Conferences:

United Kingdom

The Lancaster Disability Studies Conference is taking place 7-9th September 2010. Over 150 presenters will be giving papers and showing posters.

There will be a live webcast of the keynote sessions which can be can be viewed at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/iss/digital/disability/
The recordings will also be made available on the conference website afterwards http://www.lancs.ac.uk/disabilityconference/

Tuesday 7 September 2010
11.30-12.30 Plenary – Caroline Gooding
17.30-18.30 Plenary – Liz Crow

Wednesday 8 September 2010
9.30-10.30 Plenary – Ruth Gould
13.30-14.30 Plenary – Adolf Ratzka

Thursday 9 September 2010
11.30-12.30 Plenary – Alana Officer

Details about the plenary talks and the full book of abstracts are available on the conference website.

Registration is open for the Currents in the Mainstream conference:

The MeCCSA Disability Studies Network presents a conference on current images of disability at De Montfort University, Leicester on the 22nd September from 9-30/10.00 until 4-30. This day conference aims to re-visit and re-evaluate the complex issues at stake in contemporary representations of disability and impairment from a variety of critical perspectives, investigating both continuities and new trends in representing disability.

Presenters include Paul Darke, Debs Williams and Sonali Shah.Papers
/presentations will include work on televison, film, journalism and
performance. For more details please see Currents in the Mainstream

Amsterdam:

Conference: ‘Diversity in Quality of Life’
December 2-4 2010
VU University, Amsterdam

Disability Studies in Nederland wants to celebrate its first anniversary and the start of its research program with an international conference in cooperation with VU University, which supports this event as part of the lustrum agenda Freedom and Responsibility, on occasion of its 130th birthday. To promote the disability studies approach in The Netherlands the conference will focus on a key concept in mainstream academic approaches to disability, namely ‘quality of life’. It raises the question of how this concept can be used in a disability studies perspective.

Slovenia:

ENIL invites you to an international conference co-organized with YHD (Association for the culture and theory of handicap), 8 & 9 September 2010, Ljlubljana, Slovenia

The conference will be implemented under the
EDFEO programme for the year 2010 (European driving force for equal opportunities), within which YHD is coordinating the Eastern European group.

Location: City Hotel, Dalmatinova 15, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.

There’s more information at the ENIL website (scroll down).

Art Show:

United State

Mad Gifts: An Art Show
What:

An exhibition of inspired artwork by Icaristas throughout the Northeast; a celebration of our visionary talents and community; a fundraiser; and an opportunity to share TIP with others.

When:

November 5, 2010 – December 7, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, November 5, 7PM-9PM

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: October 1

Feel free to keep us updated on events!