Fall 2018

Design/Disability

Photo of Elizabeth Guffey, Aimi Hamraie, and Bess Williamson; seated in chairs facing the audience, in front of a projector screen with a colorful book cover projected on the screen.

Friday, September 21 | 3-5pm | 239 Greene Street, 8th floor Commons

Reading, discussion, and celebration of three new books:

—Aimi Hamraie (Vanderbilt), Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (2017)

—Elizabeth Guffey (Purchase, SUNY), Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society (2017)

—Bess Williamson (Art Institute of Chicago), Accessible America: A History of Design and Disability (2018)

—Moderator: Mara Mills (MCC, Center for Disability Studies)

Co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Media, Culture and Communication


Screening/Discussion: The LuLu Sessions (S. Casper Wong, USA, 2011, 86 min.)

Still from the LuLu sessions. Person wearing a red jumper with arms outstretched, in front of a green field.
Wednesday, October 3 | 6-9 pm | 721 Broadway, 6th floor

Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker S. Casper Wong and Lana Lin (New School).

LuLu is unlike anyone you’ve ever met. A hard-living, chain- smoking rebel with a tender heart. A poet with a potty mouth. Farm girl. Former cheerleader. World-class cancer
researcher. Beloved professor. Dr. Louise Nutter (LuLu) just discovered a new anti-cancer drug when she learns she is dying of breast cancer at 42. Shot by Lulu’s best friend and ex- something over the last 15 months of LuLu’s life, the film is a raw, intimate, yet surprisingly humorous story, testing the limits of their bond while taking on life’s ultimate adventure.

In collaboration with the NYU Department of Cinema Studies

Co-sponsor: NYU Asian/Pacific/Studies


Lecture/Discussion: Labor and Disability

Author Sarah Rose standing at a lecture with a projector screen to the right displaying old, hand colored postcards of 19th century asylums.

Wednesday, Oct 24 | 4-6pm | 239 Greene Street, 8th floor Commons

No Right to Be Idle

A book talk and celebration of No Right to Be Idle (2017) with author Sarah Rose (UTexas, Arlington), winner of the 2018 Philip Taft Labor History Prize.

Starting in the late 19th century, Americans with disabilities came to be labeled “unproductive citizens.” Before that, disabled people had contributed to homes, farms, and the wage labor market. Rose analyzes the social transformations that barred workers with disabilities from mainstream workplaces, casting them as morally questionable dependents in need of rehabilitation to achieve “self-care” and “self-support.”

In collaboration with NYU Skirball’s On Your Marx festival

Moderator: Mara Mills (MCC, Center for Disability Studies)

Co-sponsor: NYU Dept. of Media, Culture and Communication; NYU Dept. of Social & Cultural Analysis

Scroll to Top