Join us! Fridays Feb 3, Feb 17, March 3 @ 12pm, in MGH 024 (the D Center)

We’re excited to announce this great line up of multi-disciplinary Disability Studies brownbag seminars for Winter quarter! Two of the presenters are grad student recipients of 2016 Harlan Hahn Research Grants in DS: Chelsea Grimmer from the Department of English, and Kristen Shinohara from the Information School.  Please join us this quarter on Friday afternoons, 12pm, in Mary Gates Hall 024. Many thanks to our colleagues at the D Center (Disability and Deaf Cultural Center) for sharing their space & volunteering to help us organize these talks.  Please note that the D Center is a scent-free space.  We will have ASL interpretation and CART captioning available at the events. Brownbags in Winter 2017
Fridays, 12pm-1pm, in MGH 024, University of Washington Seattle

**Feb 3
Chelsea R. Grimmer, PhD Candidate, English Department

“The Lyme Letters”: A Microbiopolitics of Disciplinary Knowledge and Chronic Illness

Abstract:  This short talk will informally read across two archives, poetry and theories of microbiopolitics (Paxson), to examine the relationship between form and content. The conversation will focus on writing and performance as shaping new possibilities for thinking about the relationship between writing and embodiment, and it will involve interactive writing exercises, a performance reading, and a walk-through of the writing process and ways to read the poems, produced in part thanks to the Harlan Hahn fellowship. Participants can expect lots of poetry, fun conversation on and practice writing in the poetry genre, and some thoughts on "theory" from a poetics and disability studies standpoint in the literary and language arts. 
 
**Feb 17
Jose Alaniz, Director, Disability Studies, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages & Literatures

Disability and Animacy in Eisenstein’s Cinema of the 1920s

Abstract: In his late work of film theory, "Nonindifferent Nature," Sergei Eisenstein contends: "The organic unity of a work, as well as the sense of organic unity received from the work, arises when the law of the construction of this work corresponds to the laws of the structure of organic phenomena of nature." Drawing on examples from the director’s Strike! (1924); Battleship Potemkin (1925); October (1927); and The General Line (1929), the talk will place Eisenstein’s "organic aesthetics" of metamorphosis and “plasmaticness” in dialogue with recent intersectional work on crip/queer identity and animacies (Mel Y. Chen); disability and animality (Sunaura Taylor); and vibrant matter/posthumanism (Jane Bennett), all of which resonate with Eisenstein’s “ecstatic" early Soviet cinema of transformation.

**March 3
Kristen Shinohara, PhD Candidate, Information School

Design for Social Accessibility: Shifting Design Perspectives for Accessible Computing

Abstract: Assistive technologies, increasingly comprising computing technologies of all kinds, are intended to help people with disabilities accomplish everyday tasks. Yet, assistive technologies are traditionally designed exclusively with functionality in mind, rather than with consideration for social situations that are increasingly common with widespread mobile and wearable technology use. As a result of this function-first focus, assistive technologies are often “medical" in appearance and socially awkward to use, leading to misperceptions about these technologies and their users. Misperceptions, in turn, lead to feelings of self-consciousness when people with disabilities use assistive technologies in public, ultimately impeding access and leading to abandonment. In this talk, I discuss multiple projects that blend social science methods and technology design approaches for improving the accessibility of computing technologies, expanding awareness in design thinking to include the socio-technical experiences of people with disabilities. I describe a series of empirical studies that investigate the social implications of assistive technology use, and that conceptualize socially accessible design. In a study in which I taught technology design to students, I examine how to effectively incorporate aspects of socially accessible design into common user-centered design techniques for promoting diversity in design thinking. Finally, I demonstrate how we can augment existing design practice, particularly within computing and human-computer interaction, to increase our awareness of social situations when designing accessible computing technologies. My work culminates in a perspective shift in what we consider “accessible," to broaden functional considerations to incorporate social considerations as well. The contributions of my work are primarily empirical and methodological, applying new knowledge to improve the perspectives and practices around the design of accessible computing systems.