>> JEFF: Folks who have registered. Hello, everyone, I am Jeff Martin, and I am a white
00:07
male with greying brown hair. Unfortunately, more grey than brown, and I am wearing glasses,
00:16
and I have behind me a winter scene, which I am wishing for. Welcome to our webinar,
00:29
and if I can, I'm just going to go over a few household items. If everyone would, please
00:34
remember to keep your mute -- make sure you're on mute, and if you would also, sometimes
00:43
it's best to keep everything going smoothly, if you would turn your video off as well.
00:51
It helps with our bandwidth and to make sure everything runs smoothly, so thank you for
00:56
doing that. I'm also going to point out too that if you move your cursor to the bottom
01:02
of your screen -- for those of you who haven't been doing Zoom that often -- if you move
01:08
your cursor to the bottom of the screen, you will see a chat icon, and that is how you
01:14
can use that if you want to ask questions or interact with each other. So please do
01:21
use the chat. We will be monitoring that. Before I introduce Cassandra, or have Cassandra
01:30
take over, I also want to remind everyone that we are going to have another -- this
01:35
is kind of a two-part series in this -- and so next thursday at 1:00 p.m. EST, we will
01:44
have the second part of Doing/Undoing. So, please, if you would register for that as
01:52
well, and I think that's it for now. Um, I am going to turn over to Cassandra.
02:00
>> PAM: Or Pam! >> JEFF: Or Pam!
02:04
>> PAM: That's ok. [laughter] So, I’m Pamela Block. I'm a disability anthropologist at
02:11
Western University in the Anthropology Department. I've been here just over a year after 17 years
02:18
teaching in disability studies, and in the health professions in a US university. These
02:26
webinars, today and next week's, Doing/Undoing Disability Ethnography and Performance, were
02:33
originally planned as in-person, co-sponsored sessions for the Canadian Anthropology Society
02:40
and the Canadian Disability Studies Association Meetings during the 2020 Federation for the
02:47
Humanities and Social Sciences Congress that was supposed to be at Western University last
02:53
May. I was on the Program Committe for CASCA and had organized all these events and more,
03:00
but the pandemic came, and the world changed, but I’m so very grateful to the American
03:05
Anthropological Association for providing a home for these wonderful sessions that allow
03:10
us to use disability wisdom to continue to make and perform art and scholarship during
03:16
a pandemic and broaden our definition of what constitutes ethnography. In this virtual gathering,
03:25
let's first take a moment to remember that we are all of us connected through the winds
03:30
and waters of our earth. Let us acknowledge Indigenous elders, past and present, and the
03:36
people who held the land of our homes and universities before the arrival of colonizers
03:41
and invaders. Western University, my university, is located on the traditional lands of the
03:49
Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Leni-Lunaape peoples. My image description is that of a
03:57
52-year-old woman with glasses and wavy salt & pepper hair, and a knitted shawl and a black
04:07
shirt. I am sitting in a dining room, slash, music room, slash, COVID office, and there
04:14
is various items in the room, including a piano, a guitar case, family photos, Hanukkah
04:21
preparations, masks. The shawl, I wanted to mention, is a present from Karli Whitmore
04:27
from CASCA, one of the presents she sent to thank the 2020 Program Committee for our efforts,
04:34
and the only way I can imagine the AAA topping this would be if they sent knitted items made
04:39
of yarn spun by Devva Kasnitz. So I’m going to introduce our two presenters today.
04:48
Cassandra Hartblay is a Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, where she teaches
04:53
in the Undergraduate Department of Health and Society on the Scarborough Campus, and
04:59
in the Graduate Department of Anthropology. She is the Director of the new Research Center
05:04
for Global Disabilities Studies. Dr. Hartblay is -- identifies as a non-disabled ally to
05:12
disability justice movements and settler of European decent currently residing and working
05:17
in Toronto, the traditional homeland of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Missasauguas
05:23
of the Credit River. Cass uses she/her or they/them pronouns. Her book, I WAS NEVER
05:31
ALONE, OR OPORNIKI: An Ethnographic Play on Disability in Russia has recently come out
05:39
with the University of Toronto Press and is available on the Press's website. We'll hear
05:45
excerpts from the book today, and Cass will circulate a discount code via chat, and she's
05:51
going to do that right now, which will provide a five dollar discount toward the purchases
05:56
of her book. On screen today, Cass appears as a white woman with short wavy hair and
06:03
brown eyes in a room with grey and brick walls and a plant in the background.
06:09
Megan Moodie is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California,
06:14
Santa Cruz. Trained as a political-legal anthropologist, in recent years she has focused on the role
06:20
creativity can play in ethnographic practice, and her essays, stories, and film reviews
06:26
have appeared in venues such as the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Chicago Quarterly
06:32
Review. This is her first screenplay, and it is being created in collaboration with
06:39
a group of disabled scholars and artists she founded called the Crip Creativity Co-Lab
06:44
for Medical Justice. Her visual description: I am a white woman with dark hair and dark
06:51
rimmed glasses. I have facial dystonia on the left side and an intermittent speech impediment,
06:58
including stuttering and slurring, as a result. I now pass the microphone and the camera over
07:05
to Cassandra. >> CASSANDRA: Hi, everyone. This is wonderful.
07:16
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you, Pam, for organizing this, and to the AAA for hosting,
07:25
and to all of those of you who are here. It's really a gift to be together in this virtual
07:30
way in this dark time of year in the midst of a pandemic, and I've been really bouyed
07:36
along and found a lot in the conversations that Megan and I have already begun around
07:42
this work, so I’m really glad to share this conversation with all of you. So my recent
07:47
book that Pam just mentioned, I WAS NEVER ALONE, OR OPORNIKI is arranged around the
07:53
script of a play. So while the book contains several other elements, like an accompanying
07:58
reflective essay and a description of the methodology in terms of bringing the script
08:04
to the stage and developing the work. Um, the play itself as George Marcus wrote in
08:11
the forward to the book is the thing. It's the reason for the book's existence and it's
08:15
the part of the book that is the most substantive, which is, as we know, somewhat unorthodox
08:22
for an anthropology book. So the script is composed of six scenes, each of which is a
08:29
portrait of a character who is based on a real person from my fieldwork with adults
08:33
with mobility and speech impairments in northwest Russia, and I conducted that fieldwork in
08:39
2012-2014, and then I wrote the play script at the same time that I was writing my dissertation
08:46
at UNC Chapel Hill in 2014-2015, and with the help of Joseph Megel, Director, who is
08:52
here today, I subsequently developed the script, and we worked on it through a series of readings
08:59
and stagings, including one in Chapel Hill in 2016, and then later that same year, in
09:06
-- at UC San Diego where I was a post-doc, and we received a generous grant that allowed
09:11
us to bring one of the research participants, Vladimir Rudak, from Russia to California,
09:13
to participate in the stage workshop, and you'll hear a few audio clips that were the
09:20
result of his residency in the reading today. I also got to stage a reading of the play
09:27
at Yale University as part of [indiscernible] Symposium in 2018 with Elise Morrison, and
09:33
each -- each of these iterations was a totally, collaborative unique process, and in the book,
09:40
I reflect on the unique vulnerability that emerges in the processing of staging an ethnographic
09:45
play, and the kinds of insights as the ethnographer that I got to receive about my field site
09:52
through the process of interpreting what my interlocutors had said along with the [indiscernible]
09:58
collaborators in the rehearsal space. So, following the work of performance studies
10:04
scholar, [name], in the book, I argue that rather than any finished product or moment
10:12
in the spotlight, the work that matters here is that development process. So, I'll leave
10:18
it here for now. If time allows later, I have a short excerpt from the book about the meaning
10:24
of the work's title that I'll be glad to share with you if you're interested, but right now,
10:28
I really want to share some performances of the script. So these performances will be
10:33
excerpts adapted for the format in time of today's setting. Which means that there are
10:40
segments of longer scenes, and they're kind of not going to give you the full narrative
10:45
arc of either scene or of the play as a whole, which is a 90-minute play all together.
10:51
And if you're familiar with Dieter, you'll recognize that this is sort of a virtual staged
10:56
reading format. If you're less familiar, you'll notice that in this iteration, the actors
11:02
will be reading along from the script as they perform, and this is a nice way for us to
11:07
share a semi-rehearsed performance without the longer rehearsal work that goes into a
11:12
full performance, and in some ways, I actually think it's apt for today's setting because
11:18
our subject matter is collaborative scripts. The fact that the performances are partially
11:24
read helps draw attention to the script itself that underlines the performance.
11:30
And finally, I'll also point out that in this play, and in this script, there's no ethnographer
11:36
character. Rather, the audience plays the role of the interviewer. So, as in many other
11:43
documentary theater works, the characters will speak directly to all of you as if you
11:48
were the one conducting the interview, and I give this warning because I've learned from
11:52
past experience that ethnographers need a little content warning before they accidentally
11:57
find themselves in the middle of someone else's fieldworks. So, that's a little joke based
12:02
on some fieldwork that I -- uh, some feedback that I got at the Yale performance: when a
12:06
room full of ethnographers were like, "Wow, I feel I really was in your fieldwork." But
12:11
now, I'd like to introduce our actors. So Meredith and Jason, maybe you could go ahead
12:18
and turn on your cameras for the introduction. Meredith Kimple is here today to reprise the
12:24
role of Anya, which she also played during the staged reading of I WAS NEVER ALONE at
12:30
UNC Chapel Hill. Meredith is a freelance writer, a sometime actor, and 2015 graduate of UNC
12:38
Chapel Hill, where she studied English and Drama. On screen today, Meredith appears seated
12:45
in an interior space. She's a young white woman with brown hair and blue eyes, who uses
12:52
a power wheelchair. Jason Dorwart joins us from Oberlin, Ohio,
12:55
where he is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre and Drama at Oberlin College. Jason
13:00
is a recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship, and a past member of Phamaly
13:05
theatre in Denver, Colorado. Today, he will reprise the role of Rudak, which he also played
13:12
in San Diego and in New Haven. And in the Zoom video frame, Jason appears as a white
13:18
man with greying beard and blue eyes, also in a sort of home office space.
13:23
So now, without further adieu, um, we will move into excerpts from I WAS NEVER ALONE.
13:37
[introductory guitar music] >> JASON: I only have a few minutes, and then
14:07
we have to start our sound check. If we don’t do it properly, the horns always drown out
14:12
my vocals! >> CASSANDRA: Rudak raises his voice on the
14:15
last phrase so that a man carrying a trumpet case to the stage in a small Russian cafe
14:21
turns and smirks at him. >> JASON: [chuckle] I've been with these guys
14:26
for years. At first, it was just me and the other guitarist. Then we found our bassist
14:32
- oh, he's a piece of work - once we had him, there was no going back. We added the horns
14:38
when we did our second album, and Live Journal was the third. Local releases. We only play
14:44
shows three, maybe four times a year, but we always get a good crowd. We're all busy:
14:51
I've got my film projects, the other guys all work normal jobs, the trumpet player is
14:56
also in the city orchestra. So it's enough that we get together and practice now and
15:02
then. Usually they come to me, or some of the guys come pick me up and carry me out
15:08
to one of their cars. Just like everyone else in this godforsaken
15:12
city, I live in one of the older buildings without -- without ramps, without elevators.
15:19
A couple of flights of concrete steps between me and the rest of the world. So if you want
15:26
to talk about disability access, I can tell you plenty about inaccess.
15:33
So you want to talk about disability access in our city? You heard the case at the train
15:39
station. The trains have these new accessible cars. Fully renovated. European style. State
15:45
of the art. But do you think you can get to the platform
15:49
in a wheelchair? Forget it. Two flights of long steps. AND --- they have these new tickets.
15:58
Reduced fares with your disability status card. But in order to buy one of these tickets,
16:04
you need to present your card in person to the ticket agent in the ticket hall. And where
16:11
do you think they put the new ticket hall? At the end of the platform, totally inaccessible
16:16
from the street, two flights of granite steps. [laughter] So as long as you have a wheelchair
16:23
that can also fly, you'll have a great experience Russian trains.
16:30
So Svetlana and the gang, we got together and wrote a letter to Moscow. And then we
16:37
wrote an official complaint. And eventually, bum-bum-bum-bum, seven months, a year later,
16:44
we finally get aresponse. From whatever official office in the city government. "The Train
16:51
Station will be made Fully Accessible for the Disabled in the course of the Next Scheduled
16:57
Renovation." That was a year ago. [laughter] So what do
17:03
you think has happened since then? Nothing! The reconstruction is scheduled to takes place
17:10
two years from now. Therefore, until that time, everything is frozen. But -- actually
17:17
-- nothing will happen -- I wouldn't even be surprised if nothing happens in two years.
17:25
But at least at the train station there are porters hanging around, and people carrying
17:29
suitcases. And they'll carry you up if you ask. What's worse is all of these store fronts.
17:36
Do you think the snotty 22-year-old at the shoe store is going to come out and carry
17:41
you up the steps? Forget it. Half the places have no accessibility elements at all -- just
17:49
steps. And then the other half are building these totally useless ramps that have no relationship
17:55
to reality. Why -- why are they cropping up, eh? Because
18:01
-- first of all, the people who are building these ramps, they're not doing this so that
18:06
-- they're doing it so that the ramp existed. So if someone asks them, "Do you have a ramp?"
18:14
Like, if someone asks -- not a person with a disability -- but a person, let's say, from
18:18
some kind of committee or something like that. Someone or other comes with a clipboard and
18:24
whatever documents, and they'll put a checkmark. That's it -- access for the disabled is accounted
18:33
for. I don't know about other countries, but in
18:37
Russia, when it comes to building ramps and entranceways, they don't ask us to be consultants
18:44
-- no one who is a representative of organizations that work with people with mobility impairments,
18:50
or people who are wheelchair users themselves. They -- create ramps that seem, like, to them,
19:00
what a ramp should be. They forget to install handrails, or they make a really steep incline,
19:08
like, or the ramp is just leaning up against a wall even.
19:14
... This way of doing things, it's every man for himself. And -- these people think that
19:20
-- it'll never happen to them. That, so, you're sitting in a wheelchair, that's obvious, it's
19:28
how it's somehow supposed to be. But it's not something that ever could happen to me.
19:35
MNE?! Never. Not to him, or any of his family members.
19:43
So I bring it up, and people wave their hands and say, well, nothing is equipped around
19:50
here. Take a look around -- there's noing comfortable about living in a block of Soviet
19:55
concrete in the frozen north -- who cares if you're in a wheelchair or not! So the same
20:01
guys who are doing all of this -- building these useless ramps -- they're suffering too.
20:10
So if there's no way to do it cheaply, to save a little money, then it seems to them
20:17
that no one's ever going to show up and demand a working ramp.
20:21
>> CASSANDRA: The bassist and trumpet player cross, each with another amp, and begin setting
20:26
things down around the stage, plugging in cables. They confer for a second, then, look
20:31
to Rudak. >> CASSANDRA (as bandmate): Hey Rudak! What's
20:33
the story with the set list?? >> JASON: Whaddya askin' me now, pal, can't
20:37
you see I’m doing an interview?! [chuckles] We put the paper in the guitar case. Okay,
20:48
look -- but look. I know that this is a problem in other countries too, not just in Russia.
20:55
I was in Germany, when we pulled up to the bus station in the van. Someone had taken
21:01
the handicap space, just pulled in there, a regular car with no sticker. So it's not
21:08
just in Russia. But, you know, that's how people are. Your average guy wants things
21:14
to be convenient for himself, not for people with disabilities. And sometimes, even, he'll
21:21
hold it against you, "Ugh, come on." But if we were to trade lives and he had to live
21:29
life in a wheelchair, well, then he'd see what's so good about accessibility...
21:35
But no one wants to trade places. But, they also don't want to do anything to make life
21:42
easier for the guy in the wheelchair. No one cares about this problem... except for the
21:49
few of us that have to deal with it. Unless they're helping, pitying us poor helpless
21:57
cripples. Russia.
21:58
[in Russian accent] Rossiya!! I can get kind of romantic about it though.
22:08
Our Motherland. Have you heard our song? The one about Japan? Oh, it goes like this:
22:15
[humming] We'll play it. Later on.
22:23
[guitar music with Russian lyrics] >> CASSANDRA: Portrait six. Anya. In this
22:50
scene, Anya will be performed by Meredith, and her housemate who also performs personal
22:54
care duties will be read by the narrator. Now, into the scene. Lights come up on Anya's
22:59
scene. Anya's apartment is newly renovated, with textured wallpaper and a new refrigerator
23:04
with a small collection of magnets. There is a kitchen table, with a large bowl filled
23:08
with mandarin oranges and packets of cookies. Anya comes in, directing her wheelchair with
23:14
a small joystick. She is 35 and has neatly styled bobbed hair with bangs, and is wearing
23:19
lightly applied feminine make-up and delicate gold jewelry. The back of her wheelchair includes
23:24
a high headrest, and she sometimes leans her head against it, as if saving the muscle strength
23:30
in her neck for later. Anya turns in her chair to face the audience,
23:34
as if greeting a guest who has just come in. >> MEREDITH: So how do you like my new apartment?
23:39
[content sigh] It feels like it's been a long time coming. This is the common room. Uh,
23:46
there's no furniture yet, but I’m getting a sofa, probably, and then, I'll also put,
23:50
like, a bunch of folding chairs and and something like an easel with paper or a whiteboard in
23:54
here. So I'll be able to host rubric sessions and individual therapy here. I've got a home
24:01
office -- can you believe it? [content sigh] So, like I said, I've been trying for ages
24:08
to figure out how to do private practice on the side. I want to do counseling for everyone
24:13
-- people with disabilities and also people who are just normal. And group sessions too!
24:18
Why should I have separate groups? Moving here is good. Before, in my parent's apartment,
24:27
I had my own room. But I had the idea to live on my own, like... it was -- it was growing.
24:34
Growing-growing-growing inside of me for a long time. And then it sort of crashed over
24:41
me like a wave. ... It just flooded over me in one moment.
24:45
I was sitting in the kitchen in my parents' apartment with this one girl, as she had come
24:50
from Louhi, in this tiny village way up North, and she lived with us for a while. But then
24:56
with my nephews it got to be too much, so she moved out, but we liked each other, and
25:00
she had come to visit me. And she and I were talking. She is saying that she has to move
25:06
somewhere, but she doesn't make much money, and it's scary to move, to rent an apartment,
25:11
and everything. And I, like, I’m sitting there and saying to her, "Listen, like, do
25:16
you think it would be possible for us to live together? And I sort of inserted my own interests,
25:22
because I can't live alone, you know? Well, so -- and she, like, her eyes lit up, "Let's
25:28
do it! I’m in!" So I got her out of Louhi. And she lived here while we were doing the
25:34
renovation in the middle of the mess. What a disaster. Well, so, so basically I renovated
25:42
these rooms little by little, and then my friends decided to wallpaper for me... [sigh]
25:48
I knew I had to organize a workspace around myself, I mean at home, in a living space,
25:55
but there, at my parents' with kids, it didn't work. My nephews were always coming in and
26:03
out. And someone's always staying over. Or someone's coming to visit. Or my dad was roaming
26:10
around. It's just that -- you know -- when you live
26:15
with your parents -- it's one thing. You think, "Geez, where would I go?" You know. Parents
26:22
are parents. They meddle in everything. It has to be that way. They have to know. About
26:27
everything, you know, every last thing. And especially in my... in my situation, right?
26:34
I mean, shit, without my mom, I can't even put my underwear on. Or do the things I want
26:40
to do, ultimately. "Why did you put those ones on? Why didn't you put these ones on?"
26:48
"Well, I don't want to wear those! I wanted these ones." [sigh]
26:54
So... So that's... it's good to be here. Well, and like, the renovation took two months.
27:03
And it was... everything was ready somewhere around the end of February, and it was ready
27:08
to go. I could have moved in already. But then I had these long tortured conversations
27:15
with my dad. He wouldn't talk to me for two weeks, basically, he didn't talk to me at
27:22
all. He basically didn't talk to me at all. And then shit hit the fan. I don't remember
27:29
what it was about. He just started acting like a jerk, you know? Obviously, he has some
27:35
kind of intense overprotectiveness. I understand that he's afraid for me, he's really afraid.
27:42
So... And then he's worrying about all of it. And that he doesn't understand... My mom...
27:53
My mom more or less is the one who cares for me. It's hard for my mom. My mom said, "I’m
28:02
tired. Let's hope it goes well. Try it, and we'll see what happens."
28:07
I have to try, you understand. I won't live out my days with my parents. They're not immortal.
28:14
There's no avoiding that. Well, so. [sigh] I couldn't get past it all with him. With
28:22
my dad. And so, I kept my mouth shut, and I left. I wrote him a letter. My dad. Because,
28:30
you know, it had turned into the kind of situation where as soon as I started to say something,
28:34
he would just start yelling, and I would start to cry. So in it, I very plainly explained
28:41
-- in this letter -- like, "Papa. What did you raise me for and give me an education?
28:48
So that one day, you can say to me that I am too seriously ill? And that I can't do
28:54
anything for myself? You helped me get two -- two -- professional degrees. So what for?
29:03
So that they could hang out on the shelf? I want to do something, to change things somehow.
29:10
With -- with my own means. And while you are opposed -- while you are opposed to it, you
29:17
could be helping me to stand on my own two feet."
29:22
I just think about my friend. Her mother died. In two months, if you can imagine, her mom
29:30
died. So she was healthy, healthy, and then -- BAM! -- that's it. No mom. And the girl
29:38
was like, she was in my situation, pretty much the same, you know? She's 35 also. And
29:46
what happened? She was left with no one. She didn't have anyone at all... They were in
29:54
a hurry to find someone there who would care for her and everything. Is that how things
30:00
should be? I don't want that. Or worse, an institution. I want to already be somehow,
30:08
in some way prepared, so that I have some way of being on my own and everything.
30:14
So I say to my dad: "Papa, look, if it doesn't work out for me, then I'll come back and live
30:20
with you again. I'll live, dad, you know? Or else I'll say, Papa, ok, it didn't work
30:27
out." Yesterday, I went over for my things, and
30:32
then there he was, treating me like a stranger. I’m like, so this is how it's going to be,
30:40
like strangers? And I’m planning to go for spring holidays next weekend. And... a few
30:49
days ago, I went by with some friends and, it was a holiday, and when I came in, he was
30:56
sort of drunk. He was sitting on the couch in his room. I, like, go over and say, "Papa,
31:03
while I have five days off, I want to bring that other couch over." He's like, "Over where?"
31:11
And I say, "Papa, to the apartment of course." And I start to leave. And he's like, my dad
31:19
is like, "We'll bring you your fucking couch." "When will you bring it? Will you bring it
31:26
tomorrow?" He's like, "Okay, tomorrow."
31:30
My eyes basically fell out of my head, I was so surprised.
31:36
"My letter for you is lying there." And he says to me, "I read it."
31:44
And I say, "Good for you, you read it." He's like, "It's an inappropriate letter."
31:56
And I say, "Why? It's a perfectly appropriate letter. Why is it an inappropriate letter?
32:04
It's a perfectly appropriate letter!" >> CASSANDRA: Larissa, Anya's housemate and
32:09
helper from earlier in the scene, crosses, going from the back of the apartment to the
32:15
exit. When she's just off-stage, she yells back: An'! Don't forget the laundry detergent!
32:20
>> MEREDITH: Okay! See you later! >> CASSANDRA: Bye! Papa!
32:26
>> MEREDITH: So anyway, the couch will go over there. [sigh]
32:32
>> CASSANDRA: Anya rolls back into the main room. She turns her chair to face the audience,
32:37
as if looking out a large window. >> MEREDITH: I really like living on the first
32:42
floor. I can see everything from the window. And I have a ramp at the front stoop. They
32:50
already built it for me. I just have to get down the one set of stairs, and then off I
32:54
go. And I’m thinking about putting in a separate entrance right here, through the
33:02
balcony. You know, building a whole new entrance... a ramp with no stairs. I guess I have to write
33:08
to the Ministry. Write to the ministry and request that they build it for me. An adapted
33:16
exit, an accessible exit. Some kind of form or declaration, maybe an inspection. I don't
33:23
know what. But why not. I may as well try. Even if it takes forever. Yeah, that'll be
33:32
good. Imagine, I'll be sitting here, like, me, but 85 years old, just like I’m sitting
33:38
here now. [laughter] Fucking hell -- they'll come and say, "Anna Alekseevna, we have built
33:44
a ramp for you!" "Well, thank you, very much!"
33:57
[gentle guitar strumming] >> CASSANDRA: That was Jason Rudak and Meredith
34:06
Kimple reading excerpts from I WAS NEVER ALONE or Oporniki. Please join me in thanking our
34:14
performers for that reading and offering them a nice round of ASL applause. That was so
34:19
wonderful. Jason and Meredith, I'm so grateful for all that you bring to these roles and
34:24
for joining us for today's event. So, I’m going to pass this on now to Megan Moodie
34:29
who will share from her work, and just let you all know that we will be having a talk
34:35
back session in a separate Zoom room after this event, which I'll share in the chat now.
34:43
>> MEGAN: I’m Megan Moodie from UC Santa Cruz, and I live and work on the traditional,
34:51
unceded lands of the Uypi Tribe of the Awaswas Nation, today represented by the Amah Mutsun
34:58
Tribal Band, who are descendants of the people taken into missions Santa Cruz and San Juan
35:04
Bautista. First off, I want to thank Pamela Block and
35:11
the other panelists, both today and next week, for the privilege of participating in this
35:16
event. I’m especially grateful to Cassandra, whose conversation and encouragement have
35:23
already made a very formative role in this new project. I also want to thank the American
35:30
Anthropological Association for marking the 30th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities
35:37
Act, which is -- was this year, and I think because -- oddly -- because of the pandemic,
35:45
has perhaps not received the conversation that it should. Um, my most heartfelt thanks
35:53
go to Cynthia Croot, who directed the scenes that I'll be sharing today and who took a
35:58
huge leap of faith in taking on this project, and I still can't believe that I got to work
36:05
with such a -- with a team of immensely talented actors that bring this script to life. So
36:12
I want to thank [names] B. H., T. B., K. F., M. S., and K. B. We very much hope that you'll
36:24
join us for discussion. The link will be in the chat. Come join our Zoom room, conversation,
36:32
and afterparty, and I’m happy to talk about this project more at length, but the very
36:36
briefest introduction that I will -- um, that I'll say is that these are scenes from a feature-length
36:43
screenplay-in-progress that is part autobiography, part ethnography, and part narrative fiction.
36:51
The script, and pieces of the recording that we created today will go on and be used in
37:02
collaborative focus groups with other disabled women across the country, whose input will
37:07
become an important contribution to the ongoing writing process. Though I am the script writer
37:13
on the project, and it certainly draws from my own life, but the hope is that this story
37:19
is not singular, but rather brings to light the struggles and the humor and the rich,
37:25
complicated relationships of millions of women who live with undiagnosed or difficult-to-diagnose
37:31
chronic illness and pain. My email will also be in the chat if you can't join us afterwards,
37:38
and you'd like to ask any questions or make any comments. And with that, I will try this
37:44
very complicated screensharing thing. >> MEGAN: Hi, everyone. I guess I'm just gonna
38:08
call us back together to just share a moment, if you want to even turn on your cameras so
38:17
we can just all say hi, and I would love to invite you to check out the link for our Zoom
38:31
discussion. Cassandra has very graciously offered to host via the University of Toronto,
38:41
and we will take questions and comments and just have a discussion. I’m putting also
38:52
my email again in the chat. If you can't make the after-discussion and you have any feedback,
39:00
I would love to hear it, and I'm going to turn it back, I think, to Pam to wrap us up.
39:09
>> PAM: I think you actually did an excellent job. I don't have any more to add. Thank you
39:14
all for coming. It was great to -- to -- to, to have such a wonderful, large community
39:20
of participants, and I hope to see some of you in Cassandra's Zoom space soon.
39:29
>> JEFF: Also, I guess for those of you who are still here, remember, next Thursday! The
39:38
second part of Doing/Undoing. We'll see you then! Thanks, all!
Up next