Leeds University - Cultural Locations of Disability Conference

I went to the second  Cultural Disability Studies Research  Network  conference held at Leeds University today, The programme is as copied below. I wasn't sure at 5.30 am this morning that I really wanted to go and it was freezing too.  Here is a photo I took of Leed University when I arrive, the trees were covered with in white frost - very pretty I would have appreciated it more if I was not wandering up and down the street looking for the building.



I felt a bit of a fraud being there because I am not an academic and cannot even pretend to be a student - I just enjoy visiting academia and continue to wonder if I should do a Phd. I still think it is such an indulgence - studying - I would love to study all my life. Can I afford to?

If it is possible Leeds railway station is even worse that Euston. I had booked assistance this morning because of the early start but there was still nobody to meet me when I arrived at Leeds, the other passengers had to make sure the train did not go off before I got off. And upon my return, there was an older lady who told me sharply i was not booked on her list and there might not be a space for me on the train and insisted on seeing my ticket as though she did not believe that I knew where I was going.

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Cultural Locations of Disability:

Situating a Cultural Disability Studies

A One-Day Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference

20 February 2008

Leeds Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT 

Conference Programme 

9.00-9.30am	Welcome, registration, coffee
9.30-10.30am	Keynote address Dr. Stuart Murray, University of Leeds, ‘Disability Studies and the Humanities’
10.30-11.00am	Coffee
11.00-12.30pm	Panel 1: Disability Representation in the Arts (Chair: Rebecca Mallett)  1) Ria Cheyne, Liverpool John Moores University, ‘Literary Disability: Why Genre Matters’ 2) Terry Speake, University of Bolton, ‘Towards a New Praxis of Social Documentary Photography: What is Wrong with Disability Imagery?’ 3) Irene Rose, University of Manchester, ‘What to do with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time? Fiction, Disability and Social Change’
12.30-12.45pm	Break (lunch will be served throughout the roundtable discussion)
12.45-1.45pm	Roundtable Discussion: Situating Cultural Disability Studies in the UK (Chair: Clare Barker)  Panelists: Dr. Stuart Murray; Prof. Mark Priestley, Centre for Disability Studies, Leeds; Dr. Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University; Dr. David Bolt, Journal of Literary Disability
1.45-2.30pm	Lunch
2.30-4.00pm	Panel 2: Disability in Culture and Society (Chair: Suzanne Ibbotson)  1) Ruth Garbutt, University of Leeds, ‘Let’s Talk About Sex: Using Drama as a Research Tool to Find Out the Views and Experiences of Young People with Learning Disabilities’ 2) Yi-Ting Shih, University of Newcastle, ‘Developing from a Disabled Environment: The Disability Movement in Taiwan’ 3) Clare Barker, University of Leeds, ‘Non-Western Locations of Disability: Representation and “Remodelling” in Postcolonial Fictional Texts’
4.00-4.30pm	Coffee
4.30-5.30pm	Guest speaker Dr. David Bolt, editor of the Journal of Literary Disability, ‘From Persistence to Publication: A Discussion About How We Get Our Papers Into Journals’
5.30-7.00pm	Drinks reception