Art in the Time of a Pandemic
With Dr. Therí Pickens and Akemi Nishida
Saturday, May 15
2 pm
Pay What You Wish*

Worldwide lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic restricted travel, public gatherings, and live performances for much of 2020. Despite this confinement, creativity and artistic production blossomed in many spaces and cultures; as the saying goes, sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Disabled culture is actually a multiplicity of cultures that encompass a broad range of identities and talents. Discover the many ways in which disabled people have showcased their artistry and reflected their cultures during the pandemic. Join us for a live conversation led by Dr. Therí Pickens with Akemi Nishida.

Meet the Speakers

Dr. Therí Pickens’s research focuses on Arab American and African American literatures and cultures, Disability studies, philosophy, and literary theory. Selected titles include Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, (Duke University Press, 2019) and New Body Politics: Narrating Arab and Black Identity in the Contemporary United States (Routledge, 2014). Dr. Pickens has also written for Ms. Magazine, The Root, Medium, and more recently, the Washington Post. She is a professor of English at Bates College.

Dr. Akemi Nishida uses research, education, and activism to investigate the ways in which ableism are exercised in relation to racism, cis-heteropatriarchy, and other forms of social oppressions. She also uses such methods to work towards cross-community solidarity for the social justice and celebration of community power. She is currently working on a book project to examine the neo-liberalization of Medicaid long-term care programs as well as community-based interdependent care collectives and bed activism. She works as an assistant professor in the Disability and Human Development and Women’s & Gender Studies Departments at University of Illinois at Chicago.

*Any donation of $1 or more gratefully accepted!