by Sarah Dills
Feminist researcher and author Alison Kafer will be the next guest speaker in the Department of Ethnic Studies Distinguished Lecture series on Thursday, April 18.
Kafer’s lecture, part of CSU’s Thematic Year of Democracy, will explore how a focus on reproductive ableism and a disability lens can reshape current conversations about reproductive health, rights and justice.
“Disabled people face many barriers to reproductive health care in the U.S., and attributions of disability are often used to justify interventions into people’s sexual and family lives,” Kafer said.
“While ideas about disability have played a central role in debates about abortion, the ways in which disabled people are themselves affected by abortion restrictions have received far less critical and political attention.”
“…[T]he ways in which disabled people are themselves affected by abortion restrictions have received far less critical and political attention.” — Dr. Alison Kafer
Kafer is visiting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she is the Director of LGBTQ Studies, the Embrey Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and a member of the Crip Narratives Collective. Kafer is also the author of the popular book Feminist, Queer, Crip. Her work has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; Crip Authorship; Fighting Mad: Resisting the End of Roe v. Wade and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Her research is focused on disability and queer crip world-making in the contemporary United States, particularly as they intersect with movements and theories for reproductive, environmental, gender and racial justice.
The lecture is taking place on Thursday, April 18th at 4:15 p.m. in the Lory Student Center Room 386. Click here for more information.