Tobin Siebers; V.L. Parrington Collegiate Professor and Professor of English Language and Literature; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
From 1999 to 2005, Korean photographer Park Young-Sook investigated representations of women with mental disabilities by photographing gestures and postures used to identify women as “crazy.” Using her The Mad Women Project as a starting point, Siebers will examine the physical echoes of cognitive and intellectual disability, interrogating how aesthetics participates in the disqualification of disabled people as inferior and stigmatizes appearances associated with disabled minds. Siebers will also explore The Mad Women Project in the context of feminist theory and the work of Cindy Sherman.
Sponsored by the Henkels Fund and the Disability Studies Forum