Jen Sebring’s presentation will explore the emerging scholarship of “sickness” as a critical methodology, and how it might be useful in humanizing medical care for those living with chronic illness or disability. Rooted in feminist theory and disability studies, sickness as a methodology considers not only the embodied, felt experience of living with illness, but also the politics of navigating healthcare as a body that biomedicine cannot “fix.” Jen draws on lived experiences of chronic illness and disability, including that from their own life, to propose a methodological framework that privileges care over cure, and counters conventional understandings of health and wellness.

Poet Lauren Turner will provide a poetic reading and reflection for attendees.