this call for papers is very much related to jessica and my AERA presentation. i really want to dig deeper abouts the problems and possibilities afforded when theorizing and practicing disability rights with in the human right language, theory and practices. this post came from a great blog i follow called “the rolling rains report.”
this blog looks at issues around disability, inclusion, universal design and travel.
the call for this paper is closed.
_______________
Modern Language association Call for Papers: “Disability and Human Rights”
Call for Papers: Session Sponsored by the Modern Language Association (MLA) Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession, MLA Annual Convention, San Francisco, Calif. — December 27-30, 2008“Disability and Human Rights”
In recent years, disability scholars and activists have increasingly
turned to the language of human rights as a framework for advocating
and understanding the ethical claims of the disability rights movement
and the aims of politicizing disability as a social justice project.
For many, the appeal of such an approach lies in large part with its
explicitly inclusive reach; for to speak of “disability rights” as
“human rights” insists that disability matters are universal concerns
rather than “special needs.”
Correlatively, this holistic and integrative approach to disability has also been promoted by the international human rights community. For their political project, incorporating disability under the rubric of human rights consolidates a more robust and expansive framework for the politics of “rights”, as it reflects the postulate that, in the words of a 2002 report sponsored by the United Nations, “civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights, on the other, are interdependent and interrelated.”
This special session, sponsored by the MLA?s standing committee on
Disability Issues in the Professions, invites papers that explore the
intersections of disability rights and analysis in terms of the
political language of human rights. We seek papers that historicize,
theorize, or chronicle this development in any national or global
contexts. We are especially interested in papers that consider the
linkage of disability and human rights as it implicates or is
implicated in the contemporary critique of the human rights
political project as implicitly individualistic, universalizing,
Western, and colonial. Papers may address cultural histories, legal
discourse, critical theory, literature, visual culture, public policy,
and/or the academic profession. We are especially interested in
considerations that engage global concerns and would additionally
welcome responses to from feminist, queer, or postcolonial theoretical
perspectives.
