POSTPONED: Disability is Not a Metaphor: Access and Accessibility
Fri, Mar 13, 2020
9:00 AM–6:00 PM
The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 5th Ave, NYC
***All public programs at The Graduate Center, CUNY are postponed, canceled, or will be livestreamed through March 28th, 2020.
This event has been postponed, please check back here on our website (or sign up for our mailing list here for updates) about alternative plans or possible rescheduling for this conference.
Join us for the 2020 CUNY Graduate Center’s English Student Association Conference “Disability is Not a Metaphor: Access and Accessibility” for an access-focused day of conversation, theorizing, and community, featuring Keynote speaker Cyrée Jarelle Johnson.
The conference will take place in Room 9205 and the Skylight Room (9201) at The Graduate Center, CUNY and is free and open to the public.
Inequity is perpetuated by gatekeeping. Oppressive systems rob marginalized communities of opportunity and rhetoricity by reproducing harm in increasingly smaller circles, granting access to the few while cementing the fates of the other. As Stephen Winter notes in his discussion of transitional justice, “the account of political legitimacy does not rest upon belief and behavior but upon justification.” What justifies exclusion and blockading? How do we use illness and disability as cultural stand-ins for pity, shame, and the humanist drive to combat death?
This imbalance can be tipped by throwing open gates traditionally kept shut. In fact, we want to smash the gates. Marginalized voices shape discourse from the margins, and digital communications provide opportunities for advocates to craft an alternative narrative of sociality, community, and activism. This conference would like to examine accessibility along two intertwining forks: what is access; what is ability? What systems stymie social change, and how? Can we learn new methodologies by adjusting our historical lens? What can we do to see those who have been systematically erased?
Visit the full conference website HERE.
Access Information
- automatic doors and ramp at entrance
- bring photo ID for security
- elevators available
- gender-neutral bathroom available on 7th floor (signage available day of event)
- multiple types of seating provided
- event will be live-captioned
- presenters will use microphones at all times
- access copies will be available for each event
- quiet/low sensory room will be available during the event (location TBA)
Access Requests
- please arrive scent-free! this means, no scented cleaning or bodycare products, including perfumes, essential oils, mists/sprays, lotions, shampoos, soaps, etc.
- please do not gender people you do not know! default to their names if you’re unsure of pronouns. you are encouraged to ask people’s pronouns!
- please reserve seating for disabled and chronically ill folks; if you’re able to stand comfortably for the event, please do so
- please do not use accessible bathroom stalls if you do not need them. leave these available for disabled folks at all times.
- please do not ask disabled people about their private medical information or give unsolicited advice
About ESA:
The Graduate Center English Student Association connects current students and alumni of the GC English program through news, events, the annual conference, and regular governance meetings.
Click here to read about the conference Co-Chairs: Jessica Lugo and Jesse Rice-Evans Christian Lewis,Emily Price, and Miranda Hajduk.
Co-sponsored by the English Student Association, The Center for the Humanities, the Doctoral Students’ Council, GC Poetics Group, Early Modern Interdisciplinary Group, The Futures Initiative, Pearl Kibre Medieval Studies Group and Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas (IRADAC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
