The Disability Caucus provides a professional network for scholars of disability studies in the southeastern region. Goals include raising the visibility of disability studies in the field of Women's and Gender Studies and strengthening ties among disabled, mad, and neurodivergent members of WGS South. To foster community among members of this caucus, at least one panel is formed for each annual conference, and, at the discretion of the chair, additional remote events on feminist disability studies may be organized in other parts of the academic year.

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WGS South 2027 - Disability Caucus
Call for Proposals
Deadline: December 1, 2026

“Tinkering, Maintaining, Hacking: Disability Wisdom for a Renewed Age of Fascism”

What wisdom does the lived experience of disability, madness, and chronic illness offer in a renewed age of fascism? “Disabled people are experts and designers of everyday life,” posit crip STS scholars Hamraie and Fritsch (2019) in their “Crip Technoscience Manifesto.” From smashing curbs to hacking assistive technology, disabled people have long been tinkering, making, and building more accessible worlds. Perhaps less flashy, but necessary, is the slow, everyday work of maintenance and care. When all we have is each other, what does the mundane, slow work of maintenance and care look like? What does it offer us?

For the upcoming 2027 conference, the Disability Caucus invites scholars to submit papers, panels, and creative works that engage with this sub-theme of tinkering, maintaining, and hacking. We also broadly invite scholarship and creative works on the following related topics:

  • Histories of disability justice/activism under global fascism

  • Disability and the climate crisis

  • Feminist of color disability studies

  • Debility, immigration, and detention

  • Disability and the internet: AI slop, doomscrolling, and brain rot

  • Disability and higher ed

  • The intersection of trans studies and disability studies

  • Precarious labor, the gig economy, and disability

  • Surveillance and disability

  • MAHA, healthcare, and the ADA under Trump 2.0

Please submit any questions to Disability Caucus Chair,
Anastasia Todd (anastasia.todd@uky.edu).