Founded in 2015, University of Minnesota Critical Disability Studies (CDS) works to cultivate a community around the study of (dis)ability. As a thoroughly interdisciplinary endeavor, the CDS aims to deepen the University of Minnesota’s engagement with disability as a complex site of theoretical inquiry. CDS promotes the understanding of (dis)ability as an ever-shifting historical, socio-cultural, and political formation that deeply intersects with other vectors of privilege and oppression - such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. Because systemic inequalities unevenly distribute life chances, this collective approaches (dis)ability not only as an identity, but also as a system of power that constructs, supports, denies, and regulates the life chances of those who claim, or those are claimed by it. Interdisciplinary perspectives include, but are not limited to: Feminist Studies, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, American Studies, Transnational Studies and Performance Studies. In the 2017-2018 school year, CDS became an affiliate of the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies. We were awarded a Mellon grant in 2024 to develop a curricular program at the University of Minnesota.

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UMN Critical Disability Studies

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