Refusing to be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing, A Book Talk with Anna LaQuawn Hinton

Join us for an afternoon with Black feminist disability studies scholar Anna LaQuawn Hinton, in celebration of her recent book, “Refusing to Be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing.”

In reading canonical and lesser-known works by authors like Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Sapphire and Sarah E. Wright, Hinton pushes existing conversations in Black feminist disability studies to reckon with the role of Africanist spiritual understandings of wholeness. Hinton tracks how literary works by Black women writers attend to the debilitating and harmful effects of racist-sexist violence while also offering responses to such harm. Grounded in Africanist spiritual practices, these responses ask readers to radically shift away from a disabled/nondisabled binary, positing disability or imperfection as a key element for conceptualizing the human. Hinton develops a new concept, bodymindspirit, as a tool for reading the work of Black women writers who engage disability, a concept acknowledging body, mind, and spirit as inextricable from one another.

Washieka Torres will join us as a respondent.

This event is sponsored by the UIC Disability Cultural Center, Gender an Women’s Studies, Disability and Human Development, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, English, Black Studies, Black Cultural Center, Gender and Sexuality Center, Women’s Leadership and Resource Center, Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, and Institute for the Humanities.

Audience note: This event is open to everyone.

COVID-19 safety information: UIC does not require masking, but we are still masking in our events as an accessibility measure for chronically ill/immunocompromised folks and those living interdependently with them. Please wear a mask if it is accessible for you. We’ll have extras on hand. People may be sipping/eating and then replacing their masks.

Access information: CART (live captions) and ASL interpretation will be provided. The Institute for the Humanities is a physically accessible space on the first floor, equipped with two accessible, all-gender restrooms. To create a low-fragrance environment, please refrain from wearing scents. Please get in touch with any access requests or questions at dcc@uic.edu or 312-355-7050!

Getting to the Institute for the Humanities:
The Institute for the Humanities can be entered from the exterior of the Behavioral Sciences Building (BSB) using its dedicated door on Harrison Street, or it can be accessed through the interior of the building by passing through the Computer Lab BSB 125.

Hinton will also be giving a book talk at Access Living on Tuesday, Oct. 6 from 5-6:30 p.m.