UCR Bell Tower

News & Events

Welcome to the HHDJ News & Events Page  

Congratulations to the 2024-2025 Health Humanities and Disability Justice Graduate Fellows, and all continuing Fellows from the inaugural cohort in 2023-2024.  To read new and continuing HHDJ Fellow bios, please click here.

 

This is a preliminary list that we will be updating regularly. Please feel free to be in touch with any or all of us (Carla Mazzio at carlam@ucr.edu, Fuson Wang at fusonw@ucr.edu, and Matt King, mking@ucr.edu) about potential co-sponsorships, collaborations, or for related events you'd like us to help publicize, email carlam@ucr.edu. 

UPCOMING EVENTS: SPRING 2025 

 

  • Spring Quarter:  Bilingual Creative Writing Workshop (in person), co-organized by HHDJ Graduate Fellow Paula Cucurella (Hispanic Studies), includes 4/4 Workshop by Elena Cardon, "Bilingual Autobiographical Collage" and 4/18 Workshop with Mapuche Chilean poet Daniela Catrileo. To register, click here.   

 

  • M​onday, March 31st (in person),​ 6:00-7:30 PM   "Eco-Poetics and the Modern Apocalypse,"  a reading from Meltwater by Claire Wahmanholm (a 2025 Science + Literature Selected Title—which shows at once the fragility, devastation, and beauty of our world and humans’ existence on it) and conversation on the modern apocalypse and eco-poetics as inspiration and rallying cry.  Moderated by Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations and Bestiary.  Hats off to HHDJ Community Advisory Board Member Allison Hedge Coke for adding this event here! Presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation and the University of California, Riverside, in collaboration with the Department of Creative Writing, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Writers Week, and the School of Medicine’s Medical Health & Humanities Designated Emphasis. Click here for more and to register​.

 

 

  • Sund​ay, April 27, 3:30-5:00 pm (in person): Film Screening, discussion, and reception,  Eat Your Catfish (Winner of the 2024 Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary), Co-Directed and co-produced by the filmmaker, sociologist and photographer, Noah Amir Arjomand (PhD Columbia University, current UCR MFA student  and HHDJ Community Member). Film documents Noah's mother's last years with ALS. Followed by discussion/talk back with UCR faculty Tabassum Ruhi Khan (​Media and Cultural Studies) and Carla Mazzio (English and Medical and Health Humanities Studies). Location:  Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts (3834 Main St, Riverside) screening room, followed by a reception in the Culver Center atrium. ​Sponsors include Departments of Media and Cultural Studies and Film, Theater and Digital Production and the HHDJ Lab. 

 

  •  Thurs​day, May 15th (hybrid event)​ 2:00 PM:  “The Diagnostic Demon, or, How Trans Rights Broke Liberal Democracy​," a talk by Grace Lavery, Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley​, and author of three books including Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques (Princeton, 2023). ​ (Location: INTS 1113 or, to pre-register for the virtual talk, please click here.)​. Sponsors include the HHDJ Lab, the Department of English, the Department for the Study of Religion, and the Office of the Dean. Description: The talk draws on research for her current book in progress, Personal Demons: Possession Narratives of Late Liberalism. Personal Demons is concerned with medical transcriptions of “demonic possession” in early diagnoses of gender identity disorder, and the reverberation of those transcriptions across a range of contemporary medical and religious discourses. 

 

  • Friday and Saturday, May 30-31 (hybrid):  "Surviving the Law: Legal Advocacy for Survivors and  Scholars,"​ conference.   Sponsor​s​ include the Department for the Study of Religion and the HHDJ Lab.  Click here for more information:

 

  • PLEASE RETURN SOON FOR FURTHER SPRING QUARTER EVENTS JUST NOW IN THE WORKSHHDJ Sponsored or Co-Sponsored Events (FALL 2023-WINTER 2025
  • Oct. 11, 2023: Liat Ben-Moshe and Dylan Rodríguez, "Decarcerating Disability: A Talk and Conversation, click here to register ." Sponsored by HHDJ (co-sponsored UCR CIS)
  • Oct. 16, 2023: Rosalia Lerner, "Dehumanization, Entropy, and Death in Panteha Abareshi's Video Performances, click here to register," part of the Trans-Corporeal Entanglements Project (co-sponsored HHDJ)
  • Nov. 1, 2023: Farah Godrej and Dana Simmons, "Hunger, Meditation, Incarceration." Click here to attend this virtual event, sponsored by HHDJ (co-sponsored UCR CIS).
  • Nov. 13, 2023: Christine Greiner, "From Bare Life to Crip Bodies," part of the Trans-Corporeal Entanglements Project. Click here to attend this virtual event (co-sponsored HHDJ)
  • Nov. 30, 2023: "Linguistic Justice & Health Equity: Transforming Society by Using Community Translation and Graphic Medicine," click here for virtual event  Organized by 2023-2024 HHDJ Fellow Graduate Martina Visconti, co-sponsored HHDJ.  
  • Nov. 29, 2023: Dean Spade, "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis,"  virtual event, click here to register.Sponsored by UCR CIS (co-sponsored HHDJ)
  • Nov 15, 2023: 12:00-2:00 PM: Abolishing California (Prison) Slavery (virtual, to join click here)   Roundtable with Jeronimo Cuauhtemoc Aguilar (Legal Services For Prisoners With Children); Bobbie Butts (All Of Us Or None); Fidel Chagolla (Starting Over, All Of Us Or None); Shaun Leflore (All Of Us Or None); Laine May (Starting Over); Henry Ortiz (Legal Services For Prisoners With Children). Co-sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative. 
  • Jan 19, 2024: 3:10-4:40 PM: "Public Health and Disability,"  session of the UCR Decolonial Praxis Conference (hybrid format, in person and on zoom, 1/19/24-1/20/24), co-organized by HHDJ Graduate Fellow Fernando David Márquez Duarte. To register, click here.  Sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative.  
  • Feburary 14, 2024: 10:00 AM -11:30 AM, hybrid roundtable,  "S(crip)ts:  Anti-Ableist Pedagogy Roundtable," featuring Dr. Fuson Wang, Amy Juarez, and Dr. Crystal Baik, organized by HHDJ Graduate Fellows Loren Barbour and Allie Reichert. Location: HMNSS 2212 and on zoom: click here to join. Sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative. 
  • Feb 7, 2024: 8 AM to 9 AM, virtual event, click here to register, "In Conversation: Bayo Akomolafe and meital yaniv." Sponsored by Memory and Resistance Laboratory, co-sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative.
  • Feb 16, 2024 (related event),  9:00AM-5:00PM (Virtual) UCR Graduate Student Virtual "Care and Repair" Conference, featuring many members of the HHDJ community, current HHDJ Fellows, and Dylan Rodriguez, Carla Mazzio, and Fuson Wang as panel chairs, click here to register:
  • March 1, 2024: 10AM-11:30AM (Hybrid): William McGrath (NYU), "Among Gods and Germs, Nyen Fever in Tibet."  Location INTN 1109 and on zoom click here to join.    McGrath is the Robert H. N. Ho Family  Foundation Assistant Professor of Buddhist  Studies at NYU.  Event sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative and UCR's Department for the Study of Religion.  
  • March 20, 2024: noon-1:30 PM (virtual): Robin Katz, "Archives, Ableism, and the Work Ahead." Learn about archives from the perspective of a trained archivist, and reflect together on the ways archives can both reinforce and subvert ableism. Presentation and discussion led by Robin M. Katz, UCR Arts & Humanities Teaching Library and an expert on primary source literacy. Sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative. To register, click here.
  • April 2, 2024: 10:30 AM-11:30AM (in person) Dr. Rachel Showstack, "Linguistic Justice and Health Equity: A Multi-Pronged Approach to Improving Healthcare Language Access for Latine and Indigenous Communities in the U.S.," Location UCR INTS 1111. For more information, please click here. Organized by HHDJ Fellow Martina Visconti (Hispanic Studies), co-sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative.
  • May 14th, 2024: 3-5 PM (Hybrid): "What's ‘Genocide’ in 2024? A Roundtable with Former U.S. Political Prisoner Jalil Muntaqim," in HMNSS 1500 or join virtual streaming at this link.   Discussants including author, activist, and longtime KPFK (Los Angeles) radio host Thandi Chimurenga, All of Us or None organizer Shaun Leflore, and UCR Professor and HHDJ Community Advisory Board Member Dylan Rodríguez, with introductory remarks by Dr. Arón Montenegro, UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow. 
  • May 16,  2024: 10am (virtual): Dr. Dalia Magaña  (UC Merced), "Cancer is a Journey, not a Fight in Rural Latinas’ Health Narratives".  Click here register here.   organized by HHDJ Graduate Fellow Marina Visconti.
  • June 5th, 2024 10:30 AM (virtual), "Poetry, Disability Studies, and African American and Arab American Literature: A Conversation with Dr. Therí A. Pickens" organized and hosted by Courtney R. Baker.   To register, click here!  Co-sponsored  by the CHASS Dean's Office, the Center for Ideas and Society, and the Health Humanities and Health Humanities and Disability Justice Initiative.
  • April 4-June 7, 2024: Wednesdays (every other) 2:30-2:00 PM, Neuropolitics Reading Group, for information and scheduling form, click here. Organized by HHDJ Fellow Jovana Isevski (English).  
  • April 6-June 8, 2024: Fridays (every other) 4-6PM.  Bilingual Creative Writing Workshop,  for information, click here Organized by HHDJ Fellow Paula Cucurella (Hispanic Studies Department), Iván Aguirre (Hispanic Studies Department, UCR), and Elena Cardona (Soka University of America), co-sponsored by the HHDJ Initiative. 
  • Coming soon : a recording of Robin Katz's virtual talk,  "Archives, Ableism, and the Work Ahead":   Click here for slideshow PDF, with works cited at the end.   
  • HHJD COMMUNITY MEMBER/PARTNER/RELATED EVENTS (2023-2024)
  • Nov. 13, 2023: The SDRC and LGBTRC present the "Ability Ball." This will take place in person from 12:30 PM-3 PM at HUB 355. Click here for more information
  • Nov. 17-18, 2023:  "Canary Knowledge: Chronic Fatigue, Chemical Sensitivities and the Limits of Medicine," part of UCLA's "Oral Histories of Environmental Illness." Click here for information and registration for this hybrid conference. First Annual "Abolition Medicine and Disability Justice" Conference organized by UC Partners at UCLA and UCSC, Helen Deutsch, Rachel Lee, and Megan Moodle
  • Nov. 17, 2023: The SDRC invites you to submit your work to the "Disability Art Expo." Students, staff, and faculty can use this form for submissions. The exhibition will take place from 3 PM-4:30 PM at the Student Services Building, Tartan & Tweed. Click here for more information.
  • February 2 and 3, 2024: virtual conference (with Dylan Rodriguez), "How We Heal: Delving Into Health, Medicine and Incarceration" (UCR School of Medicine, to register click here).
  •  February 8,  2024from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in HUB 302, Cultivating Mental Wellness: Supporting the Student Experiencesponsored by The Mental Health Allies  featuring a panel discussion (and free lunch for all attendees) focused on how students can take a holistic approach to mental wellness. Be sure to RSVP. 
  • March 1 and 2, 2024:  9:00AM - 5:00PM (Hybrid) :  "Body Matters!: Disability in English Literature to 1800."  This year's conference will feature keynotes from Dr. Rachael King (UCSB), Dr. Bradley Irish (Arizona State University), and poet Jos Charles. For information and registration, click here. 
  • February 12, 2024:  9:00-noon professional development "Disability Ally Workshop," sponsored by UCR's SRDC ( space limited): click here to register.  This program seeks to facilitate awareness, understanding, and competency of disability through connecting faculty, staff, and students with resources, knowledge, and relationships of disability as diversity. Participants in this program will gain knowledge about what it means to truly be an ally for students with disabilities. Topics covered include: Disability Law, Academic Accommodations, Disability Etiquette, Hidden Disabilities, Disability Demographics, and a Student Panel.
  • May 10 and 11, 2024: "Abolition Medicine and Disability Justice" UCI Partner Event:  "Care as the First Student Learning Objective:  Breaking the Genre of the Higher Education Classroom," with an opening Keynote, "Unwellness and Care in the University," by Dr. Mimi Khúc, and presentations by UCR's Traise Yamamoto (English) and Emma Stapley (English), to be held at the University of California, Irvine, Humanities Instructional Building 135:  full schedule and information linked here:
  • Friday,  May 3, 12-1 PM PST (virtual): UCSC HHDJ Partner Event:  Megan Moodie (Anthropology, USCS)  in conversation with author Jennifer Lunden, author of American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, from 12-1 PST on Friday, May 3rd. This event is virtual, free, and open to the public,  so register now by clicking here! Also, please spread the word!

FALL 2024-WINTER 2025 EVENTS:

  • Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024, 6PM-8PM (hybrid format): Celebrating 100 Years of the Deaflympics: Preserving Institutional Independence, for more information about the event and how to register, please click here.
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  • Fall Quarter Neurohumanities Reading Group (ongoing, hybrid format):  organized by HHDJ Fellow Jovana Isevski (English Department), hybrid format, for more information, contact Jovana at jovana.isevski@email.ucr.edu
  •  

  • Friday, Nov 1, 2024, noon-2:00 PM (hybrid):  HHDJ Graduate Fellows Lunch & Orientation (hybrid), for info contact Carla Mazzio (carlam@ucr.edu)

  • Wednesday, Nov 13th: 6:00 PM (in person, location: Track 16 Gallery in LA):  Conversation between noted medical historian Wendy Kline and legendary artist Nao Bustamante (event in celebration of  Bustamante's current exhibit, BLOOM, which proposes a bold redesign of the vaginal spectrum, and the publication of Kline's 2024 Hidden History of the Pelvis):   For more information and to reserve a space, click here. 

  • Wednesday, Nov 13, 7:00 PM-8:30 PM, Michelle Browder, the artist/activist behind the Mothers of Gynecology Monument in Montgomery AL, will be speaking at the Institute for Contemporary Art in LA (hats off to HHDJ community member Jennifer Doyle for this post):  For more information click here  

  • Friday, Nov 22, 3:50-5:20 PM, SSC Multipurpose Room 3, 1st Floor (hybrid and bilingual):  "Disability Justice and Public Health,"  organized by HHDJ Fellow Fernando Márquez Duarte (Political Science).  The full conference takes place on November 22nd and 23rd.   Please click here to register in advance. 

  • Friday, Nov 22, 4:00-6:00 PM (in person, INTS 1111):  Bilingual Creative Writing Workshop 2.0, organized by HHDJ Fellow Paula Cucurella (Hispanic Studies Department), Iván Aguirre (Hispanic Studies Department, UCR), and Elena Cardona (Soka University of America). The workshop on this particular day "will explore creative expression through somatic exercises, providing a unique opportunity to deepen your writing skills. To attend, and to learn more about the workshop, please click on the form linked here.  

  • Wednesday, December 4 11:00 AM-12:30 PM : "The Neuron Cannot Know Itself: Brainhood, Buddhism, and the Body at the Margin," a virtual talk by HHDJ co-Director Matthew King, Professor, Religious Studies, UCR . This paper thinks with Tibetan critics like Lobsang Gyatso's (Blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1928-1997) to chart the epistemic and institutional limits of brainhood as an anthropological figure of modernity, and as a theoretical resource to diversity and globalize disciplinary insights in feminist science studies, critical disability studies, and the health humanities generally.  Please click here to register in advance. 

  • Thursday, Jan 9, 3:45-5:00 PM (in person):  "Mini-games for ​Recreational ​Access: Introductory  ​Workshop with ​Open ​Source ​Tools" (INTS Room 1111, bring your laptop for this hands-on workshop). Led by HHDJ Fellow Nico Valdivia Hennig​ (PhD ​candidate in Hispanic Studies at UCR, member of the Río Junto Art Collective, ​and co-founder of the game studio Niebla Games​),  this workshop introduces participants to the transformative potential of open-source game engines for creating small, accessible video games. Nico is an award-winning game designer, researcher, and ludic activist whose work bridges game design, cultural studies, and community empowerment. This session will equip attendees with the foundational skills to explore game design using open source tools like Bitsy. Participants will engage with the concepts of recreational equity, fostering inclusive and accessible approaches to gaming and game creation. Event link here. 

  • Wednesday, Jan 22, 5:00-6:00 PM (hybrid): "When Personal Meets Professional: Unpacking the Influence of Disability and Intersectional Identities," talk by  Justin Bullock, Co-Director of the Docs with Disabilities Initiative and clinical researcher in Nephrology at the Univ. of Washington School of Medicine.  FOR ZOOM LINK CLICK HERE. Description: This talk will explore the ways that intersectional forms of oppression (ableism, racism, sexism, xenophobia) appear in the medical training environment. It will explore how medical education is a model of extraction, removing individuals from the communities from which they come. The speaker will propose sustaining as the educational alternative to extraction. Drawing on both personal narrative as a bipolar physician and narrative of participant trainees, he will introduce the construct of identity safety as a major way that medical education can sustain trainees with disabilities and other minoritized identities.  Talk co-sponsored by UCR's SDRC, the HHDJ Lab, ​the L​GBT Resource Center, the WELL, and the School of Medicine. 

  • Tuesday, January 28th (online) 9:00 AM-12:00 PM): HHDJ Collaborator Event: Disability Ally Workshop (online) 9:00-12:00. For more information and registration, click here. 

  •  Friday, February 7th (virtual), 1:00-2:30 PM,   “Apocalyptic Entanglements: a Keynote Roundtable on the Temporality and Geography of Wildfire/Disaster," the first in a series of virtual events on "Apocalyptic Entanglements" with the LA wildfires as a point of departure:   Click here for full description and registration link! Panelists: J. Kameron Carter, Professor of  African American Studies, Comparative Literature & Religious Studies, UC Irvine; Francesca M. Hopkins, Associate Professor of Climate Change and Sustainability, Environmental Sciences, UCR; Mark Minch-de Leon; Associate Professor of English, Director of the California Center for Native Nations (CCNN), UCR; Brittani R. Orona, Ph.D. (Hupa), UC President's and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, History, UC Santa Cruz. Co-Facilitated by Fariba Zarinebaf, Chair of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Dept. of History, UCR, and Dylan Rodríguez, Co-Director of Center for Ideas and Society, Depts. of Black Study and Media & Cultural Studies, UCR.   

    • This event, part of a series created by Carla Mazzio, Dylan Rodriguez, and Fabriba Zarinebaf offers a sequence of urgent, real-time analytical responses to the ongoing California wildfires. How is this still-unfolding disaster a singular and/or continuous moment in the historical geography of California? How do different epistemological, archival and theoretical frameworks inform or challenge prevalent discourses of disaster, recovery, survival, community and (climate) crisis? Departing from these and other questions, the roundtable will attempt to build on the concept of “entanglement” in the context of asymmetric displacement, destruction and (human, animal, ecological) vulnerability." Cosponsored by UCR's Center for Ideas and Society, UC's Humanities Research Institute,  the Delonizing Humanism Initiative, and the HHDJ Lab. 

    Thursday, February 27, 11:00 AM-12:30 (in person, INTS 1109): "Care: Giving, Taking, and the Violence in  Between." Artist Panteha Abareshi will speak about power dynamics between the able bodied and those disabled subjects they are tasked directly or indirectly to care for - navigating the notions of the “patient,” “management,” and what new forms both volatile and tender intimacy takes in the private spaces where the cripple is relegated to be “taken care of.”   Abareshi's work is featured in Scientia Sexualis, a group exhibition at ICA LA. Organized by HHDJ Faculty Affiliate Jennifer Doyle (UCR English) and co-sponsored by the Departments of Black Study, Dance, English and the HHDJ Lab.

     HHDJ Faculty Affiliate Exhibition ends March 2, 2025:  (in person, ICA): Scientia Sexualis, co-curated by Jennifer Doyle (Professor of English, UCR), at the Institute of Contemporary Art, centering "research-driven interventions into raced and gendered assumptions that structure scientific disciplines governing our sense of the sexual body." For more, click here

    Thursday, March 6, 3:30-5:00 pm (in person):  Film Screening, discussion, and reception:  Eat Your Catfish (Winner of the 2024 Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary),  co-Directed and co-produced by the Iranian/American writer, filmmaker, sociologist and photographer, Noah Amir Arjomand (PhD Columbia, now UCR MFA student and HHDJ Community Member), with discussion/talk back with UCR faculty member Professor Robin Russin (Professor of Theater, Film and Digital Production) and reception to follow.  Film documents Noah's mother's last years with ALS.  Location: INTS 1128 CHASS Interdisciplinary Screening Room, followed by a reception. Cosponsored by Departments of Media and Cultural Studies and Film, Theater and Digital Production, and the HHDJ Lab.

    Friday, March 7, 4:00 to 6:00 PM (in person in INTS 1111),  The Bilingual Creative Writing Workshop, co-organized by HHDJ Graduate Fellow Paula Cucurella (Hispanic Studies), hosts, "Graphic Literature and Line Play Workshop," led by Rocío Pichón-Rivière (University of California, Irvine). This workshop is an invitation to experiment with lines on paper to tell stories by combining words and images—no art skills required! Participants will be guided through exercises to create somatic landscapes, portraying how the body feels rather than how it looks. Through play, doodles, and sequential art, we will explore how visual thinking can generate narratives beyond words. To register, click here. 

    Wednesday, March 12, 3:00 PM (INTN 2027 ​and also virtual at this link ):   "Home/Girl Healin': The Sacred Geographies of Everyday Black Feminist Healing Arts in Oakland, California"​ ​a talk by scholar, poet, artist, and curator reelaviolette botts-ward.    

    • This ​t​alk will focus on ree's current book project, Home/Girl Healin': The Sacred Geographies of Everyday Black Feminist Healing Arts in Oakland, California. Home/Girl Healin' is an urban ethnography that centers unhoused and housing-insecure Black women as curators of healthcare and healing. Drawing on eight years of research, it illuminates how everyday feminists use diasporic art praxis to curate sites of care in the wake of displacement.​ The book contributes to debates on health, housing, and healing. This project merges Medical Anthropology, Medical Humanities, Black Geographies, and the arts to show how Black women's artistic and autonomous communal care solutions foster decolonial repair beyond the clinical space.   Sponsors include the Department of Anthropology, the HHDJ Lab, and the Center for Ideas and Society. reelaviolette botts-ward, PhD, is a UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSF, with affiliations at UC Davis and Berkeley. Across projects, her work explores how Black women use art and ritual to heal from structural violence.  The 2024 Poet in Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora, she is currently a Contributor-in-Residence with Columbia University's Health Humanities Journal, where she writes on holistic healing for scholars, patients, and practitioners, and the founder of blackwomxnhealing,- an intergenerational wellness collective that supports the holistic well-being of Black women. She curates courses, care circles, publications, and exhibits with everyday Black women at the center. In this way, she bridges gaps between academic and community audiences through multi-medium arts.