2023 Lecture

The 2022-2023 Fordham Distinguished Lecture on Disability presents: Disabled Freedom Portals

Speaker: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (she/they)

Wednesday April 12th 2022 from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm (Online)

Watch the Recording Here 

The Fordham Distinguished Lecture on Disability is organized by the Disability Studies Program and the Research Consortium on Disability. It is sponsored by the The Office of the Chief Diversity Office and co-sponsored by the Center for Community Engaged Learning, English Department, Graduate School of Religion and Religion Studies, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Office of Disability Services, Peace and Justice Studies, The Graduate School of Social Service, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. 

Lecture:  We live in fascist times, in eugenic times, in times of concentrated attacks on bodility and land autonomy. And yet, these are the times we have. In this interactive keynote, writer and disability justice organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinah will speak about what time it is on the clock of the world, and the possibilities for disability justice lead resistance and transformation.

Bio: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (she/they) is a nonbinary femme disabled writer and disability and transformative justice movement worker of Burgher and Tamil Sri Lankan, Irish and Galician/Roma ascent. They are the author or co-editor of ten books, including The Future Is DIsabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs, (co-edited with Ejeris Dixon) Beyond Survival: Stories and Strategies from the Transformative Justice Movement, Tonguebreaker, and Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice.. A 2020-2021 Disability Futures Fellow, they are currently at work building Living Altars/ The Stacey Park Milbern Liberation Arts Center, an organization and accessible residency for disabled 2QTBIPOC writers and creators.