What would our world be like if it fully welcomed and included people with disabilities? How could we build that world to share and live in together? Why would that be a better world for all of us? The human variations we think of as disabilities are part of the human condition and have been with us throughout history and across place. From Beethoven to Chuck Close, from Oedipus to William Faulkner, from FDR to Joe Biden, disability is everywhere once we know how to look for it. This presentation finds disability in culture, history, and the arts and shows how people with disabilities and what they make and doin the world demonstrates resourcefulness, resilience, and dignity. To do so, the presentation traces the history of the disability rights movement and the flourishing of disability culture, politics, history, aesthetics, and ethics by and about people living with disabilities.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.