DISCO Network Presents - How to Survive Techno-Hellscapes: On Crip Wisdom and Critique

Everything is on fire. The supports disabled people need for survival are being decimated. The robots are coming after us, harvesting our data, surveilling us, and determining who is worthy to live. What can we do? How might the wisdom of disability elders and cross-movement organizers equip us for what’s happening and what’s to come? This roundtable brings together disability culture workers, activists, writers, and scholars to think-together about disability futures.

All are welcome and we strongly encourage undergraduate and graduate students to attend.

Advance registration is recommended.

Register to attend in person: https://myumi.ch/A148w
Register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/G2qgm

Meet the Panelists

Christa B. Teston is Andrea Lunsford Designated Professor of English; Vice Chair of Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy Studies; and Director of Business and Technical Writing at Ohio State University. Christa Teston studies how humans navigate uncertainty in technoscientific, biomedical and media-rich domains. Specifically, she researches the evidential backstage, or all the work that goes on behind the scenes when experts attempt to corral chaos. Her first book—Bodies in Flux: Scientific Methods for Negotiating Medical Uncertainty (University of Chicago Press)—critiques the fetishization of certainty and advocates for an ethic of care that honors human fragility and bodily flux.

The Cyborg Jillian Weise is a poet, novelist, video artist and disability rights activist. Cy is an Associate Professor of English at Florida State University. Cy is the author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007), The Colony (Soft Skull Press, 2010), The Book of Goodbyes (BOA Editions, 2013), Cyborg Detective (BOA Editions, 2019), and Give It to Alfie Tonight (Red Mare Press, 2020). During the pandemic, Cy started Borg 4 Borg Productions with the video play A Kim Deal Party. Her memoir and book of poems are forthcoming from Ecco.

Meet the Moderator

M. Remi Yergeau (they/them/theirs) is an associate professor in Communication and Media Studies. Their scholarly interests include critical disability studies, rhetoric, digital studies, trans and queer studies, and neurodiversity. Yergeau is an autistic academic. Their knowledge of the autistic internet is informed by the scholarly and the personal: they once ran a neurodiversity blog, led a student chapter of an autistic-led org, and coordinated local protests. Their book, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness (Duke UP), is a winner of the 2017 Modern Language Association First Book Prize, the 2019 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Book Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship, and the 2019 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award.

We want to make our events accessible to all participants. ASL and CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the RSVP form, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.