Scope of Eugenics – Call for Submission – extended until March 1, 2015

The Scope of Eugenics
Call for Submissions

Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) is pleased to announce a four-day workshop at the Banff Centre, May 22nd-25th, 2015, in Banff, Alberta. To acknowledge the significant contributions made by students to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project over the past four years, we invite submissions from early career scholars—students and those within three years of completing their doctorates—from any discipline on topics related to eugenics and its contemporary significance.

Submissions should consist of a single document that includes a (i) summary abstract (<150 words), (ii) longer description (<750 words) outlining the presentation and explaining the relevance of the topic to eugenics, (iii) short biographical statement (<100 words), and (iv) CV. Possible topics include, but are in no way restricted to, the following :

Apologies to eugenics survivors Child welfare
Collective memory Human diversity
Nationalism Quality of life
Queer sexuality Roma peoples
Schizophrenia World Health Organization
Whiteness Particular Countries / Geographic Regions

The project director is happy to provide feedback to potential participants on these and other suggestions (e.g., on particular countries or regions of the world). Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop and to contribute a short article to eugenicsarchive.ca, ideally based on their presentation, within one month of the workshop. Articles accessible via the Encyc or Around the World modules at the site indicate the type of article we have in mind.

Accommodation and meals for all workshop participants will be covered by Eugenics Archives. Participants will also be notified upon acceptance if we are able to cover in full, or contribute to in part, additional travel expenses. The workshop will allow for substantial opportunities to enjoy the Banff surrounds and will encourage networking, mentoring, and informal discussion between junior scholars interested in eugenics and Eugenics Archives team members.

Scope of Eugenics Poster with Mountains
Deadline for submissions : February 15th, 2015 EXTENDED to March 1, 2015 Acceptances : March 15th, 2015

Questions and submissions to the project director, Professor Rob Wilson : scopeofeugenics@gmail.com

Website: https://scopeofeugenics.wordpress.com/

Hosted by the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada

Damaged Merchandise Myth in the 21st Century

According to Southern California Public Radio (KPCC 89.3FM), Dr. Stan Katz, acting as an expert witness for the Los Angeles Unified School District in a 2013 trial to determine the amount of damages due to a student who had been repeatedly sexually assaulted, suggested that the victim’s low IQ “acts as a protective factor.” The logic being that because of her disability, victim who was 9 years old when assaulted should receive less compensation.

The attorney for the girl who was assaulted, David Ring, said that the jury was offended by the “protective factor” comment and responded by awarding the victim $1.4 million in damages instead of the $10,000 – $12,500 that the district had requested. The news account  also indicates that other experts repudiated the “protective factor” argument.

The Modern Pursuit of Human Perfection: The Full Story

Below are all 13 posts from our Modern Pursuit series of posts, deriving from the public dialogue that we cosponsored with the AACL and the CACL at the University of Alberta in October 2008. The public dialogue began with some opening comments from our cosponsors, continued with short presentations from our community member panelists talking of their personal experiences, and was rounded out by a series of interchanges between audience and panel. All videos now contain transcripts (thanks to Jackie Ostrem for completing the work needed here: update 21 June, 2009: all now are closed captioned, thanks again Jackie!), and the videos are also available on YouTube. Comments on the blog on any of these posts is still welcome, but we also hope that you’ll find these of interest and use down the track for individual reflection or group discussion.

Thanks to all participants: Anna Macquarrie, Bruce Uditsky, Dick Sobsey, Wendy Macdonald, Sam Sansalone, Colleen Campbell, Anne Hughson, and Simo Vehmas. And thanks to Grant Wang and Lee Ramsdell at the Arts Resource Centre at the University of Alberta for the filming and post-production work, and John Simpson for organizational assistance.

Introduction

My doctor, my child

Living with trisomy 13, part I

Living with trisomy 13, part II

When disability meets social welfare

Bioethical reflections on disability, medicine, and family life

Decisions and dishonesty in medicine

Connecting with others

Vulnerability, trust, and confrontation

Good people in medicine and the disconnect

The denial of parenthood and selective abortion

Going underground and true choice

Disability, individual autonomy, and systematic devaluation

Autism spectrum research and disability language alternatives

Bryce Huebner, a superstarpostdoctoralphilosophygraduate currently working in Marc Hauser’s lab at Harvard, recently sent me the following query. Bryce is writing up descriptions of research on autism / autism spectrum disorder and theory of mind (ToM), research that explores differences between experimental subject populations (you know, controlled studies and all that), often different populations of children. He writes:

I am really struggling with the sort of language to use in discussing some of the developmental data on mental state ascriptions. Here’s my problem. I want to try to avoid ableist language in discussing ToM. But I’m not sure how to discuss the similar capacities that emerge for both ‘normally developing’ children and ‘developmentally disabled’ children in contrasting these capacities with the lack of one sort of ToM that we see in children with autism spectrum disorder. Do you have any suggestions about how to avoid the use of terms like ‘developmentally disabled’ in this case?

My short answer was that

CBC News – Disability Matters

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran a monthly column focusing on disability issues in 2005 & 2006. The series rotated between three disabled Canadians–Anna Quon (Nova Scotia), Ed Smith (Newfoundland), and Hélèna Katz (Montreal)–and was intended to focus in on their experiences and reflections as such. The column concluded in August 2006, but the stories and comments remain relevant and thought provoking. A complete list of the columns follows. I especially recommend Imagine a Disability You Can’t See and The Beautiful Kindness in People.

Excluded: Sorry, it’s not your right

Recently there’s been one story after the next in the news about an autistic child, and about special needs children, being removed (physically, in some cases) from public spaces: A Minnesota church, more than one airplane, a kindergarten classroom. I’ve followed many of these cases on my autism weblog and the discussions that have emerged have often gotten long, and been more than heated—-they’ve been full of vitriol, hostility and disgust that parents of disabled children have so little regard for others’ safety and are, indeed, so seemingly careless of the needs of others.

Parents of disabled children do care very much; indeed they may be the most sensitive of all to how strangers feel when a child “misbehaves” in public. But being parents of kids who often don’t get understood, we have to take care—to advocate—for our kids. Experience has shown me that, at the end of the day, if my husband Jim and I don’t stand up for Charlie, people just walk by. In May, I wrote a post entitled Excluded: On Keeping the Faith about the daily advocacy a parent of a disabled child, and one’s disabled child, find themselves performing everyone we step into a public place and I’m reposting it here.