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Join us for the SDS Strand @ OSU Multiple Perspectives, April 17-18, 2018, Columbus, Ohio

Announcing Irving K. Zola Emerging Scholar Award for 2017

Lydia X. Z. Brown
for Legal Ableism, Interrupted: Developing Tort Law & Policy Alternatives to Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Life Claims. Lydia is a candidate for a Juris Doctor degree from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Their BA from Georgetown is in Arabic and Psychology. Lydia has varied teaching experience in disability studies at Tufts and MIT, often participating in experimental education programs and addressing issues of identity, ethics, and Islam. Lydia, along with Emily Ladau, is also a recipient of the 2018 AAPD Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award.

Two Zola Award Honorable Mentions

Sara Acevedo, a Ph.D. student in Anthropology and Social Change at the California Institute of Integral Studies for her paper: Neuroqueering Composition: Sensual Reflections on the Inconclusive Life of Thoughts.
and
Alyson Patsavas, a 2017 Ph.D. in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois, Chicago, receives an honorable mention for her work: The Promise of Able-Bodiedness.

Senior Scholar and Presidential Award Winners Nirmala Erevelles and Riva Lehrer

Nirmala Erevelles

The Society of Disability Studies (SDS) recognizes Professor Nirmala Erevelles as its recipient of the 2017 SDS Senior Scholar Award for her extraordinary scholarship, mentoring, & leadership.

Riva Lehrer

SDS additionally recognizes Riva Lehrer for its 2017 SDS Presidential Award. She is one of the most widely recognized disabled artists of her generation and her portraits of many of the significant figures in the intersectional disability rights and activism movement have been widely recognized for their stunning beauty and complexity.

SDS Strand at
Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability
Columbus, Ohio, April 17-18, 2018

The Society for Disability Studies (SDS) is pleased to join with The Ohio State University in organizing an SDS Strand at OSU’s Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability Conference. Generously funded by The Ohio State University and the Ethel Louise Armstrong Endowment, the Conference is characterized by a diverse audience and convened to expand perspectives on disability and enhance community resources.

The Society for Disability Studies Strand
SDS Strand events will be open to all to attend but will be presented only by SDS Members.

2018 Membership Drive

The Society for Disability Studies Membership & Donation Campaign is well underway! As you probably know, financial problems caused us to cancel our 2016 conference and to refrain from planning one for 2017. Fortunately, these problems are mostly behind us and we are excited to move forward.

SDS continues to support our renowned journal Disability Studies Quarterly. We host a listserv for discussions and announcements, and we have remade our website in the most accessible format available. We have various benefits of Membership and NEW programming in the works for 2017-2018.

We have worked out a group of specials we hope you find welcome. Please RENEW or JOIN now and receive Member Benefits through December 2018.

Organizational Members such as disability studies programs and advocacy groups that join or renew by 12/31/2017, will receive up to 5 extra “Sponsored Memberships.” This is a great way to support your students and constituents, as well as SDS!

Please consider becoming an SDS Member, renewing your Membership, or making a donation to SDS this year. We would also appreciate your help with promoting our Individual and Organizational Membership opportunities with your networks, schools, and organization directors.

Thank you for participating in and supporting SDS!
Sincerely,
Phil Smith, President

Announcing the Society for Disability Studies Speaker & Performer Roster

We invite members to become one of the first SDS Speakers & Performers on our new roster.

In efforts to gather together a robust list of people who often (more than once a year) speak or perform on disability or disability studies related topics —and to further creative ways to also support the Society for Disability Studies—we have created the SDS Speakers and Performers Roster (SDS-SPR).

Many other organizations—academic, corporate, public—have similar speaker’s “bureaus” that promote certain speakers for certain topics. Rather than promote certain speakers, we would like to be able to offer a more comprehensive and equitable “roster” that would then also demonstrate the vibrant and robust work that people are doing “on the ground” in our field, Disability Studies. We imagine that organizations and universities who are looking for good disability/disability studies speakers or performers to fit their own programming needs and goals might then be able to make use of the SDS-SPR—and too, that many of us working in these fields might have a further resource that lets us know the new and ongoing work of our colleagues.

Click link for more information about the SDS Speaker & Performer Roster.