2025 M.A. Program in Biography & Memoir Conference

a one-day conference exploring disability and chronic illness in life writing and the humanities

CUNY Graduate Center: (Hybrid) Martin E. Segal Theatre and Zoom

As disability scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson notes, “by the twenty-first century, finding disability everywhere was no longer a critical surprise.” Recent life writing by memoirists/activists such as Judy Heumann and Alice Wong, and by graphic memoirist Ellen Forney, address issues related to disability justice, intersectional experience, and destabilizing stigma, expanding popular conversations about disability and chronic illness. In scholarly works, disability studies has become a central concern, as demonstrated in works by historians Elizabeth Bearden and Dagmar Herzog, and music theorist Joseph Straus. Disability scholarship has grown explosively, including vital new work in dialogue with Black studies, feminist theory, queer and trans* theory, and ecology.

La Marr Jurelle Bruce writes of his own disability exploration as “a procession without end, without rest, without closure,” as “always in process, always awake, always open.”

The M.A. Program in Biography & Memoir invites proposals for a 5- to 10-minute presentation within a 1.5-hour roundtable exploring disability and chronic illness in life writing or the humanities. After presenting, participants will engage in a discussion with a facilitator guiding or moderating the dialogue.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

Submissions:

Please submit a 250-word abstract outlining your proposed 5- to 10-minute roundtable presentation with a 100-word bio to [email protected]. Please mention “Writing Disability” in the subject line of the email.

Eligibility:

CUNY Graduate Center master’s and doctoral students

Deadline:

[Extended] February 21, 2025