Moments and Modalities of Access: Composing Disability

Time: April 4, 2019, 2 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.

Location: Kilian Room, 500 Hall of Languages

Jay Dolmage (University of Waterloo)

In composition’s history as a remedial space, or as a sorting gate, from Harvard in the 1870s to CUNY in the 1970s, composition grew and contracted in ways that formed boundaries around bodies. These two major “foundational moments” in composition’s history were profoundly about diversity.  They were also profoundly shaped by disability — disability helped to reshape the modalities of teaching in our field. It makes sense that this reshaping would continue in an era of multimodal and mediated composition. In this presentation, Dolmage considers whether disability is truly reshaping multimodal composition, or whether it is simply being accommodated out of this design process.

Supporters include:

• Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition
• Cultural Foundations of Education
• The Burton Blatt Institute’s (BBI) Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach
• Disability Cultural Center
• Syracuse University Humanities Center

 

Patrick Berry, Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition