The Digital Accessibility Liaisons (DAL) group on campus has a reading group! We're back for Spring 2024 with a new book!

Join us for discussion on May 23. We are working on rescheduling the Spring 2024 reading group. This date is tentative and subject to change

We'll be considering Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education by Jay Timothy Dolmage. The book is available through the library and open access through the publisher.

From the publisher: "Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all."

About the reading group

To help everyone at Carolina understand and engage with accessibility, the DAL is hosting a reading group. We plan to discuss one book a semester, with possible meetings to discuss shorter, article-lenght pieces at times.

You don't have to be a DAL member to attend - anyone interested in accessibility and learning more is welcome and encouraged to attend. If you haven't read the book (or only got to part of it), that's ok, too!