504 and Beyond: Disability Politics and the Black Panther Party
Date and Time: Monday, November 10, 2025; 2:30 - 4:00 pm
Location: Online
Collaborators: Black Studies, Department of Gender Studies, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Drawing from the book, Black Disability Politics, this talk will detail the Black Panther Party鈥檚 involvement in the 1977 504 Sit-in and discuss it as a historical example of how Black cultural workers have engaged with disability as a political issue in ways that have sometimes been obscured in Black studies and disability studies alike.
Dr. Sami Schalk is a professor of Gender & Women鈥檚 Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of鈥疊odyminds Reimagined鈥(2018) and鈥疊lack Disability Politics鈥(2022), both available open access from Duke University Press. Dr. Schalk鈥檚 research focuses on disability, race and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Schalk writes for mainstream outlets and makes art as a form of pleasure activism. Her current research project focuses on the creation and impact of pleasure spaces for multiply marginalized people.鈥&苍产蝉辫;
- Schalk, S. D. Black Disability Politics; Duke University Press: Durham, 2022. .鈥&苍产蝉辫;
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Schalk, S. D. Bodyminds Reimagined鈥: (Dis)Ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women鈥檚 Speculative Fiction; Duke University Press: Durham, 2018. .鈥&苍产蝉辫;
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South Atlantic Quarterly. 120.2 (2021): 325-342. (with Jina B. Kim)鈥
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College Language Association Journal. 64.1 (2021): 100-120.鈥&苍产蝉辫;
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Schalk, Sami and Jina B. Kim. 鈥淚ntegrating Race, Transforming Feminist Disability Studies鈥 Signs. 46.1 (2020). 31-55.
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鈥淒e-politicized Diversity in the American Girl Brand鈥 Research on Diversity in Youth Literature 2.2 (2020).
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鈥淪trategic Alterations and Afro-Asian Connections in Paul Beatty鈥檚 Tuff.鈥 Mosaic. 51.1 (2018). 55-70.
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鈥淓xperience, Research, and Writing: Octavia E. Butler as an Author of Disability Literature.鈥 Palimpsest. 6.2 (2017): 51-75.
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鈥淚nterpreting Disability Metaphor and Race in Octavia E. Butler's 鈥楾he Evening and and the Morning and the Night.鈥 The Bloomsbury Companion to Octavia E. Butler. Ed. Gregory Hampton. 2020
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鈥疞ateral. 6.1 (2017)
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鈥淲ounded Warriors of the Future: Disability Hierarchy in Avatar and Source Code鈥 Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 14.4 (2020): 403-419.