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

Eugenics and contemporary disability studies

from Natalie Ball, working with Gregor Wolbring at the University of Calgary on the Living Archives on Eugenics project:

People with disabilities often were targeted by the state for eugenic intervention. Such policies and practices continue to impact the lives of people with disabilities. The word ‘eugenics’ often invokes thoughts of forced sexual sterilization mandated by a governing body. It recalls to mind 19^th and 20^th century ideas about a ‘master’ race, the Holocaust and ‘forgotten crimes’. Yet, eugenics often is seen as a dark era of the past, a regrettable fragment of history, beliefs, ideas and practices from which modern society progressively has distanced itself. But is eugenics truly limited to the past?

Eugenics is not just an historical experience. It is, arguably, a contemporary and future topic of concern for people with disabilities and for disability study scholars. To understand why we need only look at how the concept and practice were understood by Sir Francis Galton, the person who coined the term, and the way in which eugenics practices have changed over time. In his 1883 book Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, Galton introduced the term as follows: “the investigation of human eugenics – that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced.”

You can read the full article at the FEDCAN blog here

or

http://blog.fedcan.ca/2011/07/14/eugenics-and-contemporary-disability-studies/

CFP: Canadian Disability Studies Association, 6th Annual Conference

Capital D: Disability as Nation, Ground, Territory

May 25-26, 2009

Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Deadline: December 1, 2008

Papers, panels, workshops, roundtables, performances, posters and other presentations, addressing the grounds—academic disciplines, reasoning, frontiers, cultures, sites—of understanding and advancing of disability studies in Canada and internationally:

• What has been and is now the status of the Canadian citizen with Disability?

• How may Canada provide ground for a unique concept of disability, both individual and cultural?

• How may Disability provide ground for a unique concept of Canada as nation?

• Do academic territories, including methods of discipline, capitalise ideas of Disability, for better or worse?

• What are the grounds for the establishment of disability studies programs and departments across Canada?

• Does Canada’s multiculturalism permit space for Disability culture, individually, socially, or politically?

• How do physical sites—bodies, buildings, environments—create grounds and territories of Disability?

The Proposal Submission Form can be downloaded at

http://www.cdsa-acei.ca/conference.html 

 

Chris Bell on living with AIDS and teaching about HIV/AIDS in Disability Studies

 Close-up photo of Chris Bell from the shoulders up.  He is wearing a midnight blue t-shirt, rectangular glasses, silver hoop earrings, and has a thin moustache/goatee.  There are books on the shelves of bookcases in the background.

“This is not a death sentence”

by Rebekah Jones

When Chris Bell found out he was HIV-positive, he went home, sat down and watched “Law and Order.”  He didn’t cry or lash out at his partner who infected him, he said. He watched television and started his homework.  “I had papers to grade,” said Bell, a post-doctorate research fellow and soon-to-be professor at Syracuse University.  Eleven years after his diagnosis, at 6-foot-2 and 135 pounds, Bell’s emaciated figure proves how the infection plagues his body. His medicine makes him tired and sick, and he keeps losing weight.

Bell isn’t doing well health wise, but he’s pushing forward. He’s learned too much in his 34 years of living to just quit – giving up isn’t in him, he said.  “This is not a death sentence; we’re all dying,” Bell said. “Nothing has changed but my level of awareness.”  While the virus overwhelms his body, Bell continues to focus on what’s important to him: being an activist and an educator.

Bell’s first class as a professor at SU, CFE 600 (Disability, AIDS & U.S. Culture) starting Spring 2009, will be the only class at SU focused specifically on HIV and disability studies in American culture. His class will examine, critique and aim to redefine the way people think about disabled persons and HIV/AIDS patients.  Read the entire story here: http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2008/11/12/Feature/this-Is.Not.A.Death.Sentence-3538354.shtml

Acknowledgement to Beth Haller at Media dis and dat

THINKING GENDER:Graduate Student Research Conference

**NOTE: Disability is among the topics that the organizers hope to highlight**

THE UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN announces
CALL FOR PAPERS

2009 THINKING GENDER

THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE, Friday, February 6, 2009
UCLA FACULTY CENTER

Thinking Gender is a public conference highlighting graduate student research on women, sexuality and gender across all disciplines and historical periods. We invite submissions  for individual papers or preconstituted panels. This year, we especially welcome feminist research on:

– women and media
– local feminist issues and concerns in Southern California
– women and the environment (e.g., ecofeminism, the built 
environment, urban planning, architecture)
– women and political activism (e.g., women in government, women and 
war/peace)
– embodiment (e.g., disability, genetics)
– women in sports

CFP: Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion & Disability: Change, Challenge, & Collaboration

Ninth Annual
Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion & Disability:
Change, Challenge, & Collaboration

April 28 and 29, 2009
The Ohio State University Columbus Campus

Conference information past programs and updates can be found at:  http://ada.osu.edu/conferences.htm <http://ada.osu.edu/conferences.htm> , To be on the mailing list for the conference, send e-mail to ADA-OSU@osu.edu <mailto:ADA-OSU@osu.edu>

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS (Proposals are due November, 2008 ) The  Ninth Annual Multiple Perspectives conference continues the university’s efforts to bring together a diverse audience to explore disability as both an individual experience and social reality that cuts across typical divisions of education & employment; scholarship & service; business & government; race, gender & ethnicity.