What Eli Offers
In addition to the following options, Eli is happy to discuss other possibilities to meet your needs.
General Presentations
• Delivered in many different settings over the last decade (see a partial listing of previous engagements or download Eli's CV as a PDF).
• Suitable for conferences, classrooms, and public presentations.
• Can be tailored to a general audience or
• to a specific group with more advanced knowledge of disability, LGBT issues, and/or social justice from an intersectional perspective.
• Designed to range from 30 to 120 minutes.
Gawking, Gaping, Staring: Living in Marked Bodies
Description:Disabled people, trans people, fat people, and people of color all know what it's like to be stared at. Through words and images, Eli explores the internal experiences of living in marked bodies and the external meanings of oppression and bodily difference.
Format:
This multi-media talk can be delivered as a lecture, an interactive presentation, or a workshop.
Length:
1-2 hours
Recording:
Chicago Public Radio recorded this presentation when Eli gave it at Access Living in October, 2008. Listen to "Gawking, Gaping, Staring" on the web.
Freaks and Queers: Resistance and Exploitation at the Freak Show
Description:What does the history of the freak show have to teach us about resistance and exploitation, pride and shame? Eli starts with the dime museums and circus tents of a century ago and ends with the talk shows and medical amphitheaters of today as he weaves race, disability, and queerness together into stories of pride and witness.
Format:
Lecture or classroom presentation
Length:
30-60 minutes
Climbing the Mountain: Super Crips and Poster Children
Description:
Weaving together storytelling and analysis of disability oppression, Eli unpacks the lies and stereotypes the underlie the images of disabled people as either heroic or tragic.
Format:
Lecture or classroom presentation
Length:
60-75 minutes
Lectures & Keynote Speeches
Description: Eli is a sought-after speaker, delivering lectures and keynotes in a variety of settings, ranging from colleges to community organizations, from the True Spirit Conference to the annual professional gathering of the Association of Higher Education and Disability.
(Read more about specific lectures.)
Trainings & Workshops
• Delivered in many different settings over the last decade (see a partial listing of previous engagements or download Eli's CV as a PDF).
• Suitable for conferences, classrooms, and staff meetings.
• Can be tailored to various audiences, including grassroot activists, service providers, and university students, staff, and faculty.
• Designed to range from 1 to 3 hours.
Disability Access, Disability Issues, Disability Culture
Eli offers a range of possibilities--diversity talks, facilitated discussions, and trainings--to educate students, activists, and departments/agencies about disability. These possibilities include:
Moving Beyond Charity, Pity & Inspiration: Disability as an Issue of Cultural Competency
Description:
Human service providers and student affairs professionals frequently interact with disabled people but with little awareness of disability as an issue of cultural competency and social justice. Often the major disability issues faced by disabled people are not about health but about disability-based marginalization and discrimination, which in turn impact access to education, employment, and social services. Participants will leave this training with tools to create more disability access in their work places and communities.
Format:
Lecture, facilitated discussion, small group work.
Length:
The curriculum can be adjusted for a variety of situations ranging from a one-hour presentation to a day-long training.
LGBT Issues and Identities
Eli can train on a variety of LGBT topics, ranging from Transgender 101 to the impact of homophobia and heterosexism. As staff at the University of Vermont’s LGBTQA Services for five years, he has trained hundreds of people, including RAs in residence halls, campus police, and Student Life staff, on these issues.
Stories in Motion: Listening to the Marrow (A Storytelling Workshop)
Description:
Which stories do we tell about our embodied experiences of race, disability, violence, class, gender identity, and sexuality? This workshop delves into the ways our stories not only repeat, but also contradict, each other. It creates space for the telling of privilege as well as oppression. It acknowledges the activist power of story to reach across chasms of power and insist upon wholeness.
Format:
Facilitated discussion, small group work, journal writing.
Length:
The curriculum can be adjusted for a variety of situations ranging from a two hour class to a weekend-long retreat.
Readings from The Marrow's Telling and
Exile and Pride
Description:
Eli can read prose and poetry from both his books, which combine storytelling, memoir, and critical analysis of disability, queerness, and other social justice issues. He has read in a variety of contexts. A partial listing includes:
• bookstores (Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.)
• classrooms (University of Michigan, University of Vermont)
• community events (Transgender Day of Remembrance)
• conferences (Society for Disability Studies, True Spirit)
• fundraising events (R.U.1.2? Queer Community Center)
• retreats (Leaven Center)
Length:
10-40 minutes
Classroom Presentations
Eli's books are frequently used texts in a variety of classes, including Disability Studies, Queer Studies, Gender/Women's Studies, and, even, Composition 101. Eli is available to speak, present, lead discussion, and/or read in classrooms.
A small sampling of his classroom presentations includes:
• Disability and Ways of Seeing (UC Berkeley)
• History of the Freak Show (Starr-King College)
• Queer Crip Art (University of Alberta)
• Queer Theory and Disability History (Truman State University)
• Sexual Objectification and Disability (Pennsylvania State University)
• Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Stereotypes and Lies (University of Calgary)
• Telling Stories from the Inside Out (Spelman College)
• The Marrow's Telling: Poetry and Disability Culture (University of Michigan)