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Past Events and Programs

Spring 2025: Community Access and Transitioning to Adulthood for People with Disabilities
When: Wed, March 19, 5-6PM
Where: Zoom webinar
This webinar brings together community members, disability rights and family support advocates, and the Wake Forest community to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that young adults with disabilities face as they transition into adulthood.
The conversation will be moderated by Braelyn Howard, Health and Exercise Science major at WFU, and will include the following panelists:
* Alexis Radcliff, a community member
* Lisa Nesbitt, Disability Rights NC
* Chris Gentry, Family Support Network NC
The event is co-sponsored by the Program for Leadership and Character, and Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Wake Forest University. The event is free and open to the public, for accommodations please contact Michaela Appeltova: appeltm@wfu.edu.

Flyer advertising event titled Community Access and Transitioning to Adulthood for People with Disabilities

Fall 2024: “A Sophmore in Paris: Samantha Heyison”
Wednesday, Nov 13 at 6PM
Tribble Hall, DeTamble Auditorium
Please join us for a conversation with Samantha Heyison, WFU’s very own Team USA athlete and Track & Field Paralympian about her experience at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, as well as, more broadly, her experience as a disabled athlete. Samantha will be in conversation with Adam Kadlac, co-director of DSI and Associate Teaching Professor of Philosophy at WFU. Among other related courses, Professor Kadlac teaches disability and sports. The event is free and open to the public, for accommodations please contact Michaela Appeltova: appeltm@wfu.edu.

The attached flyer has a white background with a washed-out image of the Eiffel tower and the Paralympics logo (red, blue, and green agitos encircling a central point). It includes two images of Samantha – next to Samantha’s name is an image of her at a stadium in her Team USA jersey throwing a discuss, the bottom of the flyer has a small image of Samantha’s torso in a red blouse, smiling. The flyer includes a brief description of the event: “Join the Disability Studies Initiative for a conversation with WFU’s very own Team USA athlete, Samantha Heyison, about her experience as an athlete at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.” It further includes a note on accommodations.

Summer 2024: Disability Studies Across the Curriculum
In the summer of 2024, the DSI hosted a summer course development workshop for 15 faculty from across the university. Click here for more information.

Spring 2024: Film Screening: Code of the Freaks, Annenberg Auditorium, Carswell Hall, March 28 @ 5PM, 2024
The film analyzes representations of disability and disabled people in Hollywood films from Tod Browning’s Freaks to Guillermo del Toro’s Shape of Water.
The film screening was followed by Q&A with one of the film’s creators and producers, Dr. Alyson Patsavas.
Organized by Michaela Appeltova, Assistant Professor of History.

Flyer advertising the film screening Code of the Freaks

Spring 2024: Building Disability Studies Across Disciplines, March 29, 1:00-2:30PM, 2024
Conversation for for interested faculty and staff about the successes and challenges of building and sustaining disability studies across schools and disciplines. DSI was joined by Alyson Patsavas, Assistant Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).
Organized by Michaela Appeltova, Assistant Professor of History.

Flyer advertising Building Disability Studies Across Disciplines

Fall 2023: Film Screening and Discussion: The R- Word
November 14 at 5 PM in DeTamble Auditorium
The DSI hosted a film screening of the film The R- Word followed by a discussion panel featuring Aimee Mepham, Associate Director of the Humanities Institute; Dr. Michael Shuman, Director of the Center for Learning, Access, and Student Success (CLASS); and Dr. Michaela Appeltova, Assistant Professor of History.

Spring 2023: Black Disability Poetics and Politics: A Conversation with Sami Schalk and Vilissa Thompson – click here for the event recording
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 4:00pm
ZSR Auditorium
Dr. Sami Schalk is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction (Duke University Press 2018) and Black Disability Politics (Duke University Press 2022). Vilissa Thompson is the Founder & CEO of Ramp Your Voice! and the creator of the viral hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite. This event is organized by the Wake Forest Disability Studies Initiative and is sponsored by the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute with support made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Provost’s Fund for a Vibrant Campus; the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and the Disability Affinity Resource Group.

Flyer for Black Disability Poetics and Politics: A Conversation with Sami Schalk and Vilissa Thompson

Spring 2023: Public Lecture: The Bioarchaeology of Rare Disease: A Framework for Considering Disability and Lived Experiences in the Past
Aviva A. Cormier, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Davidson College
Friday, February 10th, 4:00-5:00 PM
Sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Disability Studies Initiative
The study of individuals with Rare Diseases from archaeological contexts is increasingly an avenue of interest for bioarchaeologists and paleopathologists. Informed by a critical disability studies perspective, in this talk, Dr. Cormier presented an interpretive framework that steps beyond the differential diagnosis of a rare disease and towards an understanding of the individuals’ mobility or activity limitations, engaging with the resulting social limitations that impact the individuals’ identities and experiences.

Fall 2022: Book discussion group co-organized with the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT): Creating Inclusive Learning Opportunities in Higher Education: A Universal Design Toolkit
This book discussion group met three times over the course of the semester to discuss Sheryl Burgstahler’s book, Creating Inclusive Learning Opportunities in Higher Education: A Universal Design Toolkit.

Summer 2022: DSI course planning grant
The Humanities Institute offered to award up to two $2,000 summer planning grants to university faculty to support development of a course on disability studies intended to be taught in AY 2022-23.

Spring 2022: The DSI hosted Dr. Liat Ben-Moshe for a virtual talk titled “Decarcerating Disability”
Dr. Liat Ben-Moshe is an Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her book, Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) offers a genealogy of the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities in the U.S. in the 20th century as a result of the closure of disability institutions. The book connects this history with current prison abolition efforts, laying the groundwork for coalitions between racial and disability justice projects. The virtual talk was free and open to the public. This talk was organized by the Wake Forest Disability Studies Initiative and was sponsored by the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute with support made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support was provided by the African American Studies Program, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Disability Employee Affinity/Support Group, and the Race, Inequality, and Policy Initiative (RIPI).

Flyer for virtual talk by Dr. Liat Ben-Moshe: Decarcerating Disability

Fall 2021 and Spring 2022: Faculty working group on the topic of disability studies
Sponsored by the Humanities Institute, the primary goal of the seminar was for faculty to share and receive feedback on their scholarship within the field of disability studies.