Conference on Disabilities, Arts and Sexualities

This conference will explore the intersections between disabilities, arts and sexualities from an interdisciplinary perspective

We refer to the plural of disabilities and sexualities, as in each category there exist many variations and representations which cannot be reduced to a simple or singular meaning.

Fundamentally, the question of desire/s is at the heart of this exploration. In Sex and Disability, Anna Mollow and Robert McRuer state, “rarely are disabled people regarded as either desiring subjects or objects of desire”. In this conference, we shall redress the balance of this stigmatised presumption and look to the many ways that people with disabilities experience and express sexuality through art. Or to put it differently, how can artistic mediums like film, theatre, literature, music, visual art contribute to an understanding of the experience of disabilities and sexualities?

This conference shall also explore how the arts provide a platform to represent disability in a way that differs from the day-to-day legal and official discourses, such as politics, sociology or narratives of equality and human rights. We can think about how artistic representations work to transform narratives of disability from the politically correct context that may inhibit bodily realities, into a language where pleasure and pain (as they relate to disability and sexuality) are given expression.

For more information please go to https://www.disabilitiesartsexualitiesconf.org