��������

Monday 2nd June 2025
10.00am -11.30 (Toronto time)
15.00 -16.30 (Sheffield time)

This is a free event held fully online via Zoom. For security reasons we will release the zoom details on the early morning of the 2^nd June 2025 here: Disability Matters Scholarship Collection.

Speakers

Aparna Raghu Menon 

Aparna Raghu Menon is a Ph.D. Candidate in Public Health Sciences at the �������� of Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral project draws on critical disability studies, communication studies, posthumanism and feminist frameworks to investigate the intersections of autism, health and communication amongst non-verbal autistic children and adolescents.

Title: Examining the frames of reliability and productivity in non-verbal autism: A critical disability studies approach

Abstract: In this paper, I explore whether the possibilities of autistic communication are fulfilled only by a successful completion of the communicative act or whether such possibilities exist simultaneously within the risks carried by failure-laden communication or a silent refusal to communicate. To do this, I draw on Titchkosky’s and Michalko’s ideas of how disability-framed-as-problem reproduces endless renderings of the problem of disability while leaving the frames completely unexamined (2017).

Kim Fernandes
Kim Fernandes is a researcher, writer and educator interested in disability, data and technology in urban India. They are currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Information at the �������� of Toronto. Fernandes holds a joint Ph.D. with Distinction in Anthropology & Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development in 2024. Their recent work has been funded by the Social Science Research Council and the Taraknath Das Foundation’s Marion Jemmott Fellowship. Fernandes also holds an M.S.Ed. from the �������� of Pennsylvania, an Ed.M. in International Education Policy from Harvard ��������, and a B.S.F.S. (honors) in International Politics from Georgetown ��������.

Title: Skepticism with/in/as Crip Technoscience: Disabilities and Technologies

Abstract: Where and how might we place skepticism in understanding what technology does to/for disability, and vice versa? This reflection attends to disability as cultural production through technology (assistive and otherwise) with the intention to locate both productive and difficult tensions in how we come to think of what technology is "good" for. Beginning with an attention to the assumptions that often shape the development of new technologies in the popular cultural imagination, this reflection will then move to a meditation on the role of skepticism within the praxis of crip technoscience. In asking how disabled people and communities respond to technoscientific advances, the reflection also attends to how and where (else) we might make meaning of narratives of progress.

 The format of the symposium will be:

●      Introduction 

●      Spoken provocations 

●      Q&A

●      Online plenary and open discussion

Total duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

What is Disability Matters?

Disability Matters is a major six year pan-national programme of disability, health and science research, funded by a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award.

A key ambition of Disability Matters is to make disability the driving subject of research. We will be promoting scholarship that demonstrates the contribution of disability studies to a host of fields including medicine, medical humanities, medical sociology, science and technology studies, health sciences, population health as well as other key areas including education, law, business, legal studies, health psychology, social work, etc.

Over the course of the project, we are going to run a number of online symposia. We are asking speakers to write a short provocative piece that they will then present online for ten minutes.

In this symposium, we explore how disability matters and the ways that we perceive as critical to our lives together.

Time zones

We are a pan-national programme and welcome attendees from all over the world.

Please check the time of the event according to your time zone as it may differ from what is listed above.

Access

Written copies of the speaker’s talks will be made available before the session on our Disability Matters Scholarship Collection.

A Zoom meeting link will be shared via email ahead of the event.

Attendees are welcome to join or leave the event at any time. Participating in the Q&A and discussion is optional.

A recording of the talk will be available after the event.

If you have other specific access needs or have further questions about access, please get in touch via disabilitymatters@sheffield.ac.uk