23 Apr The Crip’s Speech in an Age of Austerity: Composing Disability Transnationally
Robert McRuer (English, George Washington University)
Monday, April 23 / 5:00 PM
MultiCultural Center Theater
McRuer is known for being the catalyst behind bringing queer studies and disability studies into productive conversation. In this presentation, he considers the ways in which disability is situated at the center of a global and globalizing austerity politics. Through queer readings of both disability rights activism and the film The King’s Speech, McRuer examines the complex and contradictory ways that disability materializes in our moment. Disabled people are both demonized by and paradoxically useful to the guardians of austerity politics in the UK, the US, and globally. This paper analyzes the neoliberal politics of affect in circulation around disability as well as the affective politics that crip and queer activists have generated in resistance to neoliberalism.
Sponsored by the Diversity Lecture Series, the Dept. of Feminist Studies, the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the IHC, the Dept. of Sociology, the Queer Commission, the IHC’s New Sexualities RFG, and the Hull Chair in Feminist Studies.