Women's Studies at SCSU















  


Past Conference Details and Schedule:

1998:
Fulfilling Possibilities: Women & Girls with Disabilities
The 8th Annual Women's Studies Conference
Friday, October 2 - Saturday, October 3 1998

Click here for conference schedule >>

The Southern Connecticut State University Women's Studies Program in conjunction with the Disability Resource Office, The Connecticut Department of Labor, The Governor's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, The Connecticut Board of Education Services for the Blind, and The American Council for Education hosted The Eighth Annual Women's Studies Conference at Southern Connecticut State University, "Fulfilling Possibilites: Women and Girls with Disabilities." This conference provided an opportunity to explore issues regarding women and girls and disabilities and sought to promote interaction among academics, community leaders, activists, students, professionals, artists and others interested in women's and disability studies.

Featured Speakers

Kathy Buckley, billed as "America's First Hearing Impaired Comedienne," is also a four-time American Comedy Award nominee as Best Stand-Up Female Comedienne (1995-98) . In 1998, she received the Media Access Award for her critically acclaimed one woman show "Don't Buck with Me!" which chronicled the comedienne's extraordinary life. She also starred in the HBO Comedy Special, "Women of the Night," taped at the U.S. Comedy Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

Tanis Doe is a Deaf sociologist, educator, parent and feminist/activist (not necessarily in that order) whose current priorities are action research, international development, and ending violence against people with disabilities.

Anne Finger has long been active in both the disability rights and feminist movement. She has published three books, including Past Due: A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth (Seal Press, 1990). Her fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Staring Back and The Disability Studies Reader, as well as in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and Kenyon Review. She has received the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship and has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Djerassi, and Blue Mountain.

Karen Kangas is the Director of Communications and Community Education at the Connecticut Department of Mental Health.

Nadina La Spina is a disability rights activist in the United States and Italy and teaches Italian language and Disability Culture Studies at The New School for Social Research. In addition, she has written many articles on disability culture for international journals.

Corbett Joan O'Toole is a longtime activist, organizer, writer, filmmaker and mother. She is the Director of the Disabled Women's Alliance, a network of women from the United States and Canada, whose members have been involved in women's issues and disability rights for many years and have been frustrated at the barriers to inclusion that exist in both the women's and disability communities.