Sunaura Taylor | University of California, Berkeley (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Sunaura Taylor
New Literary History, 2020
This interview between Sunaura Taylor and Sara E S Orning took place digitally, over the course o... more This interview between Sunaura Taylor and Sara E S Orning took place digitally, over the course of several months in the spring of 2020, during the time that the COVID-19 pandemic exploded around the world The exchanges have been edited into the four conversations presented here, dealing with human and nonhuman life, death and vulnerability, racial and environmental justice, and extinction Sunaura Taylor is the author of Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, which won the 2018 American Book Award She is Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley Her work, which argues for the need to bring animal and disability activism together, has been influential and pioneering in both the academy and broader public contexts Sara E S Orning is Postdoctoral Fellow for “BIODIAL: The Biopolitics of Disability, Illness, and Animality,” a three-year research project funded by the Research Council of Norway
Occupying Disability: Critical Approaches to Community, Justice, and Decolonizing Disability, 2016
This chapter includes a collage of reports from disabled (and their ally) occupiers of different ... more This chapter includes a collage of reports from disabled (and their ally) occupiers of different cities. The collage is contextualized by Taylor’s involvement in Occupy/Decolonize Oakland through journals she wrote while she stayed at the camp site. As much as this chapter acknowledges and celebrates the powerful force of Occupy Movement, it also points out the movement’s challenges to make the sites accessible to all. Stewart and Hall illustrate works of CUIDO (Communities United in Defense of Olmstead) and its intersection with the Occupy movement. Nishida introduces KOWS (Krips Occupy Wall Street), the disability community representation at New York City, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and multiple roles it plays at the site. Liebert reads OWS from radical psych perspective, and shares ways people are working to educate OWS to ensure safety for all within the movement. Lehman points out relations between Occupy and general disability rights and suggests mutual education take place between these movements. This chapter ends as Taylor reflects on awareness she gained through her participation in the movement; where she learned the depth of structural police violence and her own privileges in intersection with her disability identity.
Qui Parle, 2011
For twenty-two years I have been concerned with the exploitation of animals. For twenty-eight (my... more For twenty-two years I have been concerned with the exploitation of animals. For twenty-eight (my whole life), I have been disabled. For the past few years I have been painting images of animals in factory farms. The following essay was born from this visual artistic practice.1 My paintings not only led me to research; they forced me to see and focus on animal oppression for hours every day in a way I never had before. Through this focus I became increasingly aware of the interconnections between the oppression of animals and the oppression of disabled people. This connection did not lie, as many people suggested, in my being confi ned to my disabled body, like an animal in a cage. Far from this, the connection I found centered on an oppressive value system that declares some bodies normal, some bodies broken, and some bodies food.
Articles by Sunaura Taylor
New Literary History, 2020
This interview between Sunaura Taylor and Sara E S Orning took place digitally, over the course o... more This interview between Sunaura Taylor and Sara E S Orning took place digitally, over the course of several months in the spring of 2020, during the time that the COVID-19 pandemic exploded around the world The exchanges have been edited into the four conversations presented here, dealing with human and nonhuman life, death and vulnerability, racial and environmental justice, and extinction Sunaura Taylor is the author of Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, which won the 2018 American Book Award She is Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley Her work, which argues for the need to bring animal and disability activism together, has been influential and pioneering in both the academy and broader public contexts Sara E S Orning is Postdoctoral Fellow for “BIODIAL: The Biopolitics of Disability, Illness, and Animality,” a three-year research project funded by the Research Council of Norway
Occupying Disability: Critical Approaches to Community, Justice, and Decolonizing Disability, 2016
This chapter includes a collage of reports from disabled (and their ally) occupiers of different ... more This chapter includes a collage of reports from disabled (and their ally) occupiers of different cities. The collage is contextualized by Taylor’s involvement in Occupy/Decolonize Oakland through journals she wrote while she stayed at the camp site. As much as this chapter acknowledges and celebrates the powerful force of Occupy Movement, it also points out the movement’s challenges to make the sites accessible to all. Stewart and Hall illustrate works of CUIDO (Communities United in Defense of Olmstead) and its intersection with the Occupy movement. Nishida introduces KOWS (Krips Occupy Wall Street), the disability community representation at New York City, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and multiple roles it plays at the site. Liebert reads OWS from radical psych perspective, and shares ways people are working to educate OWS to ensure safety for all within the movement. Lehman points out relations between Occupy and general disability rights and suggests mutual education take place between these movements. This chapter ends as Taylor reflects on awareness she gained through her participation in the movement; where she learned the depth of structural police violence and her own privileges in intersection with her disability identity.
Qui Parle, 2011
For twenty-two years I have been concerned with the exploitation of animals. For twenty-eight (my... more For twenty-two years I have been concerned with the exploitation of animals. For twenty-eight (my whole life), I have been disabled. For the past few years I have been painting images of animals in factory farms. The following essay was born from this visual artistic practice.1 My paintings not only led me to research; they forced me to see and focus on animal oppression for hours every day in a way I never had before. Through this focus I became increasingly aware of the interconnections between the oppression of animals and the oppression of disabled people. This connection did not lie, as many people suggested, in my being confi ned to my disabled body, like an animal in a cage. Far from this, the connection I found centered on an oppressive value system that declares some bodies normal, some bodies broken, and some bodies food.