Lennard J. Davis

"Race, Disability, and the New Genomics"

About Ian Fletcher

The 2003 Ian Fletcher Memorial Lecture will feature Lennard J. Davis, Professor of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education, and Director of the Project on Biocultures at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Bending Over Backwards: Essays on Disability and the Body (New York Univ. Press 2002) and My Sense of Silence: Memoir of a Childhood with Deafness (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2000) as well as other publications on the topic of disability studies and medical education. A reviewer in the Chicago Tribune calls Davis, "history in the making; for he is one of the foremost proponents of 'disability studies,' the newest theoretical kid on the block, noteworthy in part because it brings together scholars from the humanities and the medical sciences."

Professor Davis' lecture is entitled "Race, Disability, and the New Genomics." In it, Davis proposes that, "if we are not successful in crafting a new progressive way of seeing identity, genetic science, left to its own devices, is in the process of inventing a new identity for us through the authority of the human genome. Because many intellectuals have been interested in identity purely from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences, there has not been a proper dialogue in the public sphere between those in the sciences and those who have crafted much of the work on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and the other major identity categories. Yet, the power to create and sustain identity is shifting from a social construction model to a hard science model that will be difficult to interrogate or undo once it has taken form. This lecture explores the way that identity has been challenged from a postmodern critique and how the next phase--the biotechnologizing of identity--is coming about."

The lecture is open to the public. Refreshments will follow.

Sponsored by the ASU Department of English, ASU Disability Resources for Students, ASU Department of Speech and Hearing Science, ASU Department of Languages and Literatures, and the ASU College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Learning Communities. For more information, please contact: Faye Verska, 480-965-8711.