Reimagining Bodyminds and Access in Pandemic Times
This talk will discuss Dr. Schalk’s first book Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction and explore how educators can take inspiration from speculative fiction visioning to reimagine access in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Schalk will reflect on the gifts and challenges of teaching in this cultural moment.
Sami Schalk, 2020 Keynote Speaker
Sami Schalk is an assistant professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. Schalk’s first book, Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, & Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction (Duke UP 2018), explores how black women writers use non-realist genres to reimagine the possibilities and limits of bodyminds, challenging our understanding of the meanings of disability, race, and gender. Schalk’s next project focuses on disability politics in black activism in the post-Civil Rights era. She identifies as a fat, black, queer, femme, non-disabled cis-gendered woman. She can be found on Twitter as @drsamischalk and on her website, samischalk.com.
