The Last American Freak Show
Richard Butchins / 2008 / UK / 80min / Documentary
Friday, February 4th, 3pm
19 University Place, Room 102
Political correctness be damned! A motley crew of performers with disabilities, turn the American Freak Show on its head, as they travel the country exposing bigotry, bucking expectations, and challenging preconceptions at every step. Screening to be followed by a discussion.
Presented by the NYU Council for the Study of Disability as part of the Third Annual REELABILITIES: NY DISABILITIES FILM FESTIVAL
February 3-8 in multiple locations through New York.
For complete festival schedule and information, visit REELABILITIES.ORG
Current Scholarship in Disability Studies & the Humanities:
Critiquing Medical Technology and Caregiving
Friday, March 4th, 2:30-4pm
726 Broadway, Room 542
JULIE PASSANANTE ELMAN
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
Diagnosing Adolescence: Neuroparenting Teens in the Decade of the Brain
LEZLIE FRYE, Ph.D. Candidate
Program in American Studies, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
Ashley Xed: Private Matters, Public Life
Cosponsored with The Department of Social & Cultural Analysis and the Department of Anthropology
Gifts of Mobility? Disabilities, Queerness, & Evangelical Christian Rehabilitation
April 22, 2011, 4:00-6:00 PM
NYU Dept of Social & Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor NY, NY 10003
ROBERT MCRUER
George Washington University, Dept. of English
&
JULIE PASSANANTE ELMAN
NYU, Dept. of Social & Cultural Analysis
In 2009, Joni and Friends International Disability Center (IDC) celebrated its 30th anniversary of “ministry to people with disabilities and their families across the US and the world.” Founded by Joni Eareckson Tada, disabled after a 1967 diving accident, IDC has participated in transnational evangelical/disability activism including two seemingly-disparate contemporaneous initiatives: 1) “Wheels for the World,” a missionary outreach program that distributes donated wheelchairs throughout Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and the Middle East and 2) the Manhattan Declaration, a globally-disseminated Christian manifesto, which avows support for pro-life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom and condones civil disobedience against laws regarding abortion and gay marriage. We examine IDC to spotlight how certain forms of transnational disability activism-along with the desire for new understandings of disability and disability identity-can be problematically articulated in and through emergent forms of homophobia and neocolonialism.
This event is co-sponsored by The NYU Council for the Study of Disability, The Center for Religion & Media, The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, & the Program in American Studies.