Interrogating Disability: The De-Composition of a Recovering Paralympian

NOTICE OF A SPECIAL SESSION JOINTLY HOSTED BY: SACPA on Campus; University of Lethbridge Office of the President; Women’s Scholars; LPIRG; Depts. of Kinesiology, Sociology, Women & Gender Studies; Gender, Equity & Diversity Caucus (ULFA); OUTreach Southern Alberta

How did you become able-bodied? What did you do to yourself? That must be so, so horrible to be confined to walking!! When will you get better….that is…become more like me?

And so the interrogation begins….

In this auto-ethnographic lecture/performance, I weave personal stories, creative writing, critical disability theory and some insights from Michel Foucault and Robert McCruer to explore how the daily questioning and story-telling about disability serve to create certain kinds of disabled (and able-bodied) subjects. Throughout this presentation, I interrogate and re-imagine my own experiences of diagnosis, Paralympic classification, basketball games, media interviews, conversations, internal struggles and attempts at resistance: stories of how I have been composed, and have (de)composed myself, as a disabled Paralympian.

Speaker: Danielle Peers

Danielle is a Trudeau and Vanier scholar who studies the relationship between disability, sport and social justice movements in Canada. Danielle’s academic engagement overlaps greatly with her activism, her filmmaking (G.I.M.P. Boot Camp; And the Rest is Drag), her performance art, her past career as a Paralympic athlete, as well as her current roles as a wheelchair basketball coach and community organizer. Danielle is currently working on her Ph.D. in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta.

Date: Monday, October 1, 2012 Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm Location: Room PE250, 1st Choice Savings Centre, University of Lethbridge

Free event, refreshments will be provided

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