After a Long Pause: Back in the Saddle!

We’re meeting again!  We’ll be discussing selections from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s latest book, Staring: How We Look (Oxford UP, 2009).

The date?  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8

The time? 4pm, runs for about an hour

The place? Argo Tea, in the Loop (State and Randolph)

We really hope you can make it!  We’ll also be discussing future readings, alternate times, alternate places, and general thoughts about where people would like the group to go.  If you can’t make it please pipe in here!  You can also send us an email at cripsconverse@gmail.com

The texts are attached in PDF format.

Next meeting: Tuesday, March 24, 7pm–Sex Positive Film Series

For our next meeting, we’ll be meeting at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum at UIC this Tuesday, March 24 @ 7pm in order to view “Doin’ It: Sex, Disability & Videotape,” which is being screened as part of UIC’s Sex Positive Film Series.  We’ll get together afterwards to reflect on what we’ve seen.  Hope you can make it!  Details below.

MARCH 24: “Doin’ It: Sex, Disability & Videotape” (2008) + selections from “Orgasmic Women: 13 Selfloving Divas” (2005)

#1: Tags along on a date between a woman with a disability and her able-bodied boyfriend, exploring their relationship issues over a candle-lit dinner. #2: A rare gift of intimacy, a spirited sharing of erotic practices and a document of women’s authentic orgasms.

Sex Positive Film Series web site

A recent conversation re: Siebers & (among other things) Sobchack

Thom Donovan’s blog, Wild Horses of Fire, recently posted a correspondence with one of our reading group members, Patrick Durgin, on the subject of disability theory, aesthetics, and embodiment.  Patrick’s response mentions our first reading group discussion of Vivian Sobchack’s “A Leg to Stand On,” and Thom is thinking through Siebers’s Disability Theory.  A pretty fascinating thread, and erudite too: food for your thought!

The conversation can be found here.

Next Meeting: Sun. March 1, 2009–Michael Davidson

For our next meeting, we’ll be reading the introduction and chapter 1 of Michael Davidson’s Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body. From the University of Michigan Press website:

Concerto for the Left Hand is at the cutting edge of the expanding field of disability studies, offering a wide range of essays that investigate the impact of disability across various art forms—including literature, performance, photography, and film. Rather than simply focusing on the ways in which disabled persons are portrayed, Michael Davidson explores how the experience of disability shapes the work of artists and why disability serves as a vital lens through which to interpret modern culture. Covering an eclectic range of topics—from the phantom missing limb in film noir to the poetry of American Sign Language—this collection delivers a unique and engaging assessment of the interplay between disability and aesthetics.

The meeting will be on Sunday, March 1 at 4:00 pm. We’ll rendez-vous at Argo Tea on Randolph & State (see our blog’s “About” page for more details and a link to a map). Hope you can make it!

The pdf files should be available here:

Introduction

Chapter 1

First post!

Per our colleagues’ fantastic suggestion that we have some forum for reporting/reflecting on what happens during our meetings, we’ve started a blog for the DS (Disability Studies) Reading Group Chicago.  So here she blows… hope this will be a site for continued and long-distance dialogue, to supplement our site-specific meetings.

We want this site to be as accessible as possible, so if you find it lacking, please educate us about how we can bring that about!