Becoming Bipolar Britney: A Conversation about Disabilities Studies, Mad Studies and Mad Pride

The Centre for Studies in Social Justice presents Jijian Voronka:

 

Becoming Bipolar Britney: A Conversation about Disabilities Studies, Mad Studies and Mad Pride 

 

Jijian Voronka is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at OISE/University of Toronto, where she holds a CGS SSHRC Doctoral scholarship. Drawing on Anti-colonial, Disability, and Mad Studies, her current research involves an institutional ethnography of how, under what conditions, and to what effect the participation and employment of people with lived experiences of homelessness and mental health issues plays out in a national research demonstration project.  She teaches “A History of Madness” at Ryerson University’s School of Disability Studies, and works as a Consumer Research Consultant for the Mental Health Commission of Canada. 

 

7:00pm Location: Windsor Pride, 422 Pelissier St. 

 

The talk will start with a discussion of Mad Pride, and how it, along with 5 decades of activism and advocacy done by the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movements and their allies, has influenced the development of a burgeoning field called Mad Studies. Followed will be an example of “Mad Studies,” a talk that explores tabloid press representations of Britney Spears as a mentally ill subject, and is interested in how this project of ‘diagnosing bipolar Britney’ works towards solidifying biomedical conceptions of madness.