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Conference Archive

Leeds Disability Studies Conference 2024

The inaugural Leeds Disability Studies Conference took place 3-5th September 2024. We were delighted to welcome over 300 delegates to campus and host 150 online delegates from 51 countries.

Keynote speakers

Photograph of Miro Griffiths taken in a garden. There are beautiful flowers and dappled sunlight. Miro is seated in his powerchair. He is facing forward and smailingMiro Griffiths: Resistance Practices and Imaginations: Young Disabled People's Participation in Disability Activism Across Europe

Dr Miro Griffiths is a Lecturer in Social Policy and Disability Studies at the University of Leeds and Co-Director of its Centre for Disability Studies. He holds several advisory positions on disability policy across government departments, civil society organisations an private enterprises.

 

Photograph of Marie Sepulchre. Marie has a dark bob and is smiling.Marie Sépulchre: Recentring freedom in our work for disability rights and justice.

Dr Marie Sépulchre is Senior Lecturer iat the School of Social Work at  Lund Universeity in Sweden.  Her book Disability and Citizenship Studies (Routledge 2021) unpacks the struggle for citizenship of Swedish disability activists. Her current work centres disability in higher education, and disabled people's right to freedom as non-domination in relationships of power and dependency.

 

Photograph of a smiling Sami Schalk. She s wearing glasses and glittery rainbow earringsSami Schalk: Black Disability Politics

Dr Sami Schalk is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction (Duke University Press, 2018) and  Black Disability Politics (Duke University Press, 2022). Her interdisciplinary research focuses broadly on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture.

 

Photograph of Bob Williams-FindlayBob Williams-Findlay: The present and future of disability politics

Bob Williams-Findlay has been a leading disability activist in Britain for thirty year, including being Chair of the British Council of Disabled People and a co-founder of Disabled People Against the Cuts. He has appeared on TV and been a keynote speaker at numerous conferences. He has written two books, the most recent Disability Praxis, and a range of articles relating to Disability Politics and Social Opression.

 

PGR Symposium

Our postgraduate researchers (PGR) hosted a one-day symposium for PGRs and early career researchers ahead of the main conference. The day compromised of a workshop led by Dr Sami Schalk (University of Wisconsin-Madison, US) on ‘Critical Disability Studies as Methodology’ and a panel on ‘Black Disability Politics’. PGRs Johanna Knebel and Ruby Goodley provided a reflection on the PGR event  and on the conference itself.