Hi,
Have not been updating my blog since a very long time (sorry
about that) which is good and bad both. Well bad because I’ve been completely
out of touch with you, even my ‘travelling the world on wheels’ facebook group
has not been updated for a very long time. In fact people are posting adverts
in other languages which I do not understand. And yes the reason I say it is a
good thing because many dont like the blog, which is absolutely fine because
everyones different but this blog is my writing for pleasure and yes they are many grammar and language
mistakes but I am writing for fun not for a newspaper article.
So on a rainy day in May I was board of reading papers on feminism
(because I have to write this paper on feminism and disability), researching. I
stopped and started googling for call for papers on disability. I don’t know
why was I doing this I was in no mood of writing and already had loads of work
to do. I googled anyways and came across this invite for call for papers for an
international conference organized by University of Chester in association with
Critical Disability Studies (Manchester Metropolitan University) (MMU) and the
Disability Research Forum (Sheffield Hallam University) I Chester. Well I read
through the event and the submission for call for papers. The topics for paper
presentation were all very exciting (if I was a super cripple! I would have
done them all. But reality bites I cannot!). One topic that really intrigued me
was ‘celebrating deviancies’ aha! I am going to write about this. But what am I
gonna write? Aaa will figure something out. So I signed myself up (by the way
the conference event was free for students). I had to submit a 150 word
abstract by the end of May which was just 15 days left.
So then I began, an idea popped into my head aha how about
if I use the concept of slow-motion and time and disability…so slow-motion all
depends on time, like when involved in an accident the person would feel
everything around them is happening slowly. So time is perceived differently by
everyone, for example for me getting up from my wheelchair for me it takes 7 minutes
and I feel ok, for me its normal but for an able-bodied person looking at me
feels I take too long to get up as it is a slow, struggling process.
But I had to further mould my idea. Aaa lets see! I think I kind
of got it: slow-motion used ins art becomes a creative technique, but when it
happens in reality (like me) it becomes a disability. Eureka! And now I have to
elaborate my idea through my abstract. At the same time I wanted to keep it
academic but not too boring. It had to be exciting as well and easy to understand.
So I in a sentence spoke about slow-motion in time, peoples’ perception and
then how such a normal idea becomes a disability in real life. I took a chance
and used Einstein’s theory relativity of time where he says: When a man sits
with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a
hot stove for a minute -- then it's longer than any hour. That's relativity!
I also use Foucault as my saviour where he talks about how
inclusion is necessary (a bit of boring philosophy) I had to use him because I am
writing for academics. And then to create adventure I wrote about slow-motion
being used in famous Hollywood film like Matrix.
I then put it neatly all together, fluffed it a bit with
famous quotes and academic jargon and then emailed it just in time, an hour
before the deadline. Gosh it wasn’t easy writing this abstract. And I had
complete faith its never going to get approve which was kind of good because I had
no paper.
Oh yeh, by the way I called it ‘When the deviant becomes the
norm!’
Let’s see what happens next!
All rights reserved. nadia.ahmed@qmul.ac.uk +44 (0)789 6250265 Please do join my facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=120688481285587
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