Elizabeth J. Donaldson, professor of English and interim associate dean for curriculum and student success at the New York Institute of Technology.
Syracuse University’s Humanities Center and the Burton Blatt Institute’s (BBI) Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach are hosting the two-part Syracuse Symposium, “‘Cripping’ Graphic Medicine: Psychiatric Disability, ‘Crip’ Culture and the Humanities.” Elizabeth J. Donaldson, professor of English and interim associate dean for curriculum and student success at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), will give a public lecture on these topics on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 4 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, 114 Bird Library.
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, Professor Donaldson will follow up her lecture by leading “Drawing Out the Public Sphere: A Workshop on ‘Cripping’ Graphic Medicine” starting at 10 a.m. in 304 Tolley Humanities Building.
This symposium, in the emerging cross-disciplinary field of graphic medicine, engages Syracuse University’s and SUNY Upstate Medical University’s constituents in collaboration by drawing linkages across disability studies and the health humanities. Both events are free and open to the public. Community members are encouraged to attend. An RSVP is not needed for the lecture; please RSVP to Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri for workshop participation (information follows).
The Consortium for Culture and Medicine—involving Le Moyne College, Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University—and the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences are co-sponsors of the events.
Today, graphic memoirs are both popular and acclaimed: for example, Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” (2006) is taught in college courses and has been adapted into an award-winning Broadway musical. Yet, when Justin Green published his 40-page autobiographical comic, “Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary,” in 1972, he was breaking new ground and inventing a new form. By reading Binky Brown as a disability memoir, Donaldson argues that psychiatric disability and the empathetic treatment of mental health issues are foundational to this genre. Contemporary graphic memoirs of psychiatric disability are both a legacy of Green’s innovative confessional comics and an extension of his work. For students of disability studies, these graphic texts challenge stereotypes of mental illness and offer important and unique insights into the experiences of people living with madness and psychiatric disability.
“These Syracuse Symposium events will address issues of power in the silencing of disability and the ‘voices’ of those who experience barriers in healthcare and healthcare education and practice,” said Diane Wiener, research professor and associate director of interdisciplinary programs and outreach for BBI. “The event will also address how disabled people’s ‘voices’ are sometimes silenced in graphic medicine, the comics industry and beyond, thus demonstrating why adaptations are necessary to (re)fashion a primarily visual medium so that it is consistently accessible to a spectrum of creators and audiences.”
A second lecture and workshop in this series will be held in Spring 2020 with MK Czerwiec, a.k.a. Comic Nurse.
Event Details
Tuesday, Oct. 29: ‘Cripping’ Graphic Medicine: Psychiatric Disability, ‘Crip’ Culture and the Health Humanities
Public lecture by NYIT Professor Elizabeth J. Donaldson
4 p.m.-6 p.m.
Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, 114 Bird Library
Light refreshments will be served.
Wednesday, Oct. 30: Drawing Out the Public Sphere: A Workshop on ‘Cripping’ Graphic Medicine
Workshop led by NYIT Professor Elizabeth J. Donaldson
10 a.m.-noon
304 Tolley Humanities Building
Please call 315.443.2156 or email razubal@law.syr.edu to RSVP for this workshop.
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) will be provided during the lecture and workshop. For other accommodations, contact Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri at 315.443.2156 or razubal@law.syr.edu.
