Disability and Disciplines 2019, Liverpool Hope University

Abstract

Oh my, what a gathering! commented one observer upon seeing photographs of the and Disciplines Conference published on Facebook. Another spoke of Disability Studies royalty all in one room. Although the scholars concerned would no doubt balk at such a description, this conference- organized by David Bolt, Claire Penketh, Heidi Mapley, and other core members of the Centre for Culture and Studies, 1 and 2 July 2015- truly was a remarkable event. Almost sixty papers in eighteen panels, as well as three keynotes, were presented over the two days, and of course much of the conference's strength lay in its diversity. The theme of and Disciplines enabled presenters to engage with an extensive range of topics, held together by a thread of criticality drawn from David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder's The Biopolitics of that questioned the limits of inclusion through embodied pedagogies. The keynotes were of course fantastic. Julie Allan closed the first day with an erudite, impassioned plea for better recognition and appreciation for the role of art and serious play as ways of learning about and through disability, aesthetics, and ethics. On day two, Peter Beresford delivered a strong critique of the narrative of recovery which permeates discourses of psychiatry and mental health, arguing for greater acknowledgement of other models of mental health and living. Delegates' tweets about Beresford's paper were credited with boosting interest in Mad Studies. David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder closed the conference by screening a short film made by their George Washington University undergraduates about a visit to Germany, illustrating the powerful learning about contemporary marginalization engendered through tangible experience of international disability history and eugenics.There were many other highlights-far too many for any one person to keep track of. With this in mind-and inspired by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Georgina Kleege's plenary panel, where digital technologies were used to help the audience engage with, and contribute to, the presentations-this Comment has been written in a different way than usual. After the conference, I invited delegates to contribute a paragraph to a Google document, summarizing a panel they particularly enjoyed. The rest of this Comment is an edited sample of the product of that invitation.Cath Nichols (University of Leeds) remarked that there was none of the grandstanding found at some conferences, and that everyone was very friendly-even the famous speakers. Panel topics stretched from Policy and Inclusion to Documentary and Film to others that offered student perspectives and PhD papers on, for example, Narratives of Students Living with Chronic Illness in HE through the lens of Ableism and Normalcy. US academics Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Georgina Kleege spoke of Teaching about with a Disability, revisiting work published with Brenda Jo Brueggemann. They spoke of utilizing technology and student power to facilitate teaching. For example, Kleege asks students to volunteer to scribe onto whiteboards. She explained how some technologies are seen as aids for disabled people while others are accepted norms for non-disabled people, quoting David Bolt's witticism that PowerPoint is assistive technology for the severely sight dependent. Garland-Thomson showed us how she is planning to use real-time captioning via her iPhone to make notes of her teaching sessions. Of course, no technology works for everyone; we need to be thoughtful in our choices.Ella Houston (Liverpool Hope University) provided a synopsis of a panel on approaches to learning difficulties. Laura Waite (Liverpool Hope University) powerfully represented the voices of people who are labelled as having PMLD (Profound, Multiple Learning Difficulties). Using storytelling as a research method, Waite interrogated the ableist and individualizing ways that traditional educational and professional practices conceptualize PMLD. …