Ashley Shew, author of Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, will present "Walkie Talkies, Health, and Disability."

This talk introduces students to tropes about disability and about technology – and about what disabled people actually have to say about technology and disability. "Walkie-talkie" is a term from Harriet McBryde Johnson's Accidents of Nature where the other kids at camp refer to the ambulatory amputee as a "walkie-talkie" because the other kids at camp have disabilities that either make talking or walking much harder to impossible. This term will help us to look at walking and talking in the context of medical practice and social beliefs. Walking helps you get places, talking helps you communicate, but they are both good for what they do, not what they are. There are many more ways to move in the world (crutches, wheelchairs) and to communicate with others (AAC devices, signed languages). Drawing from stories and memoirs authored by disabled people, we will critically assess how society gets hung up on walking and talking in ways that limit creativity and set up a hierarchy of value that impacts people's lives and medical practice.