February 2026
How the Civil Rights Movement Shaped Disability Rights
February 4, 2026 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
A discussion exploring the connections and shared history between the Civil Rights Movement and the Disability Rights Movement. These pivotal movements were founded on innovative strategies, legal precedents, and moral arguments, all of which contributed to progress.
Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice Book Talk with Rachel Kolb and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
February 12, 2026 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco, 2025) is Rachel Kolb’s debut book about growing up deaf and mainstreamed in the years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Part memoir, part social commentary, Kolb reflects on the possibilities and stakes of communicating in different languages and sensory forms, from spoken and written English to American Sign Language. Moderated by Mara Mills.
Laura Mauldin + Sian-Pierre Regis: In Sickness and in Health
February 12, 2026 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
A release event with writer, professor, and former New America Fellow Laura Mauldin for her debut book In Sickness and in Health: Love Stories from the Front Lines of America’s Caregiving Crisis, which Publishers Weekly has called “an unflinching look at private worlds of pain and a forceful denunciation of America’s for-profit healthcare system.” Joining Laura for this event is Sian-Pierre Regis, award-winning director, former CNN/MTV journalist, and now podcaster of the caregiving podcast series Raising Adults. In addition to interviewing Laura about the book, Sian-Pierre will share a never-before-heard clip from his upcoming podcast series.
March 2026
The Sensational Museum: Hannah Thompson in Conversation with Georgina Kleege on Arts Access
March 11, 2026 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
A presentation by Prof. Hannah Thompson (Royal Halloway, University of London) about her project The Sensational Museum, which, as she writes, means “using what we know about disability to change museums for everyone.” Prof. Thompson will be in conversation with Prof. Emeritus Georgina Kleege (UC Berkeley) and Dr. Kevin Gotkin (Assistant Director, Center for Disability Studies, NYU).
INTERFACE FRICTIONS: How Digital Debility Reshapes Our Bodies
March 13, 2026 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
In Interface Frictions, Neta Alexander explores how ubiquitous design features in digital platforms reshape, condition, and break our bodies. Discussion: author Neta Alexander (Yale University), Anna McCarthy (Cinema Studies), and Whit Pow (Media, Culture, and Communication). Moderator: Faye Ginsburg (Anthropology / Center for Media, Culture & History).
May 2026
Big Blue: Computing Depression from the DSM to AI Psychodiagnostics with Jeff Nagy and Whit Pow
May 1, 2026 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
An event with Jeff Nagy in conversation with Whit Pow, who will examine the remaking of psychiatric disability in an AI era through the case of algorithmic depression diagnostics. Depression diagnosis and treatment have long been targets for computation, from early patient tracking systems to cognitive behavioral therapy software. But what happens to the political economy of diagnosis in the scalar shift from clinic to platform, and in the concomitant translation from diagnostic criteria to machine learning features? What can we learn about an emergent technopolitics of depression by examining these systems and the datasets they depend on? This talk takes up these questions, leveraging a database of three decades of attempts to bring AI to bear on depression diagnosis. Moderated by Mara Mills.