The Disability Studies Initiative (DSI) is a pre-existing organization of faculty from across the University committed to exploring the social and cultural dimensions of disability. We believe disability is a generative site of scholarly inquiry, not merely a “problem” to be solved, and that engaging it seriously requires perspectives from fields that rarely speak to each other. DSI brings together that range of interests and methodologies in an ongoing interdisciplinary community. DSI includes affiliates from departments within the College of Arts and Sciences—including Anthropology, English, German, Media Studies, Philosophy, and Women, Gender & Sexuality—as well as the School of Engineering, the School of Education and Human Development, the School of Medicine, and the UVA Library.
Before Disability Studies emerged as a field, disability was treated within the academy primarily as an object of medical expertise and treatment. In the decades following disability rights’ movements, scholars reframed it as a form of human difference, a vector of social oppression, and a critical lens for examining institutions, cultures, and knowledge systems. Disability Studies has developed into a flourishing interdisciplinary field. DSI was founded to cultivate this scholarship at UVA.
For questions about the Disability Studies Lab, please contact group leaders Paul Dobryden (pad9q@virginia.edu), Elizabeth Ellcessor (eae2@virginia.edu), and Martina Svyantek (MartinaSvyantek@myuva.onmicrosoft.com).