We were at last year’s Conference to Restore Humanity and are attending again this year. This online conference includes us like no other.
Now we have the opportunity and understanding to move from emergency pandemic remote school and its pantomime of learning to purposefully designed online education spaces that are accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities they serve. It’s time for the academic conference model to respond accordingly.
Conference to Restore Humanity: The Need
- ⭐4 flipped keynotes, which means less sit-and-get & more community building!
- ⭐3 engaging, collaborative learning tracks on environmental ed, game design, & antiracist UDL!
- ⭐20+ live events to choose from!
The theme of this year’s conference is “Breaking the Doom-Loop”.
The simple act of having hope for a better future breaks the doom-loop and builds a platform for action. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents, the main character, Lauren Olamina, digs and leads others to this well of hope amidst climatological and manmade disaster, disruption, and mass death along the American West Coast. Spreading the philosophy of Earthseed, she writes in her Book of the Living: “The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.” A different world is possible if we overcome the distortion of our senses and see beyond broken systems. By setting our sights toward something new, we can reveal solutions that already exist today.
Join us July 24-27, 2023 for a one-of-a-kind virtual conference connecting young people, educators, activists, and academics in reimagining education.
Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023
We’ll be attending the “Rebellion by Design: Antiracism and UDL” track hosted by Tesha Fritzgerald.
The moment we become an expert on someone else is the moment we allow our biases to rule in power. And, it takes away honor.
Tesha Fritzgerald
That line really resonates with us, as does all of Tesha Fritzgerald’s work. We quote from that work on our Universal Design for Learning glossary page.
There are so many ways to honor our students and our learning community with the work that we do. We can lift our students with the honor that is embedded in the UDL framework, which recognizes and celebrates our differences and the need for flexible learning environments. If we are brave enough to call out the barriers in our system, fight actively to dismantle our system, and commit to being antiracist, we have the power to take action to design something better, something just, something that honors every child as the brilliant scholar they are.
Fritzgerald, Andratesha. Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning (p. 13).
Stimpunks is already in the conference Discord watching the first flipped keynote, “A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World” by Dr. Antonia Darder. Having the option of dropping in a few days ahead of the first day to get oriented is part of the accessible charm of Conference to Restore Humanity. Here are our notes, so far, on the first keynote.
Anger, Epistemic Injustice, and Building an Epistemology of Love
Anger is a logical response to the repeated trauma of oppression.
“Keynote: A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World – Dr. Antonia Darder“
An epistemology of love implies a way of coming to know another beyond intellectual or academic knowing, an extended or enriched way of knowing and living with another
Vanessa Merkel via “Keynote: A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World – Dr. Antonia Darder“
Epistemic injustice refers to harms that relate specifically to our status as epistemic agents, whereby our status as knowers, interpreters, and providers of information, is unduly diminished or stifled in a way that undermines the agent’s agency and dignity.
Neurodiversity, epistemic injustice, and the good human life – Chapman – 2022 – Journal of Social Philosophy – Wiley Online Library
To recognize the anger that comes with epistemic injustice and build an epistemology of love in its stead, we at Stimpunks embrace co-production, participatory research, emancipatory research, and activist research.
- Epistemic Injustice – Stimpunks Foundation
- Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #3: Mental Health and Epistemic Justice – Stimpunks Foundation
- Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #4: From an Ivory Tower Built on Sand to Open, Participatory, Emancipatory, Activist Research – Stimpunks Foundation
Via co-production, participatory research, emancipatory research, and activist research, we learn to be in community and do the work of translating community and voice into academic comprehension.
Our political work for social change begins seriously at the very moment when we become both critically aware and intolerant of the oppressive conditioning that obstructs our ability to be in community and obstructs our freedom.
Keynote: A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World – Dr. Antonia Darder – YouTube
Suppressing Our Anger Enables Fundamental Attribution Error and the Conquering Gaze from Nowhere
…teachers are generally expected to be dispassionate to repress their feelings and quietly acquiesce to policies and practices that strip them of their Humanity without expressing anger for the conditions of their labor.
Keynote: A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World – Dr. Antonia Darder – YouTube
That dispassionate repression makes way for the conquering gaze from nowhere, fundamental attribution error, and epistemic injustice — fixtures on the educational journeys of the neurodivergent and disabled people in our community.
- Conquering Gaze from Nowhere: Meritocracy Myths, Marked Bodies, and Spoiled Identities – Stimpunks Foundation
- Fundamental Attribution Error and Harm Reduction Theater – Stimpunks Foundation
- Objectivity – Stimpunks Foundation
- 🗂 Facts, Fire, and Feels: Research-Storytelling from the Edges – Stimpunks Foundation
Epistemic Disruption
…engage with the epistemic disruptions that are necessary if we are to change the world.
Keynote: A Critical Reflection on Our Struggle for a More Just and Loving World – Dr. Antonia Darder – YouTube
An important part of our mission at Stimpunks is reframing disability and difference and “developing a language in which we can both understand and challenge the world”. That reframing is a continuous act of epistemic disruption.
- Reframe Disability and Difference: We’re Going to Rewrite the Narratives – Stimpunks Foundation
- Glossary: Develop a Language in Which We Can Both Understand and Challenge the World – Stimpunks Foundation
The long-term well-being and empowerment of Autistics and members of other neurocognitive minority groups hinges upon our ability to create a paradigm shift – a shift from the pathology paradigm to the neurodiversity paradigm.
THROW AWAY THE MASTER’S TOOLS: LIBERATING OURSELVES FROM THE PATHOLOGY PARADIGM • NEUROQUEER
Leave a Reply