Jessica Horvath Williams

Jessica Horvath Williams's research and teaching connect nineteenth-century US literature and critical disability studies, with a focus on neurodiversity, theory and social justice. Her book project “Raising Abel: Neurodivergent Hermeneutics and the Spacetime of Justice” challenges neurotypical assumptions about interpretation and time, proposing a neurodivergent model for research and justice work. Her work has appeared in Studies in American Fiction.

Horvath Williams co-directs the Mellon-funded Critical Disability Studies Initiative, which is working to establish a program at the University of Minnesota, develop an intersectional, transnational curriculum, and partner with disabled communities beyond campus.

Horvath Williams serves as board vice president of the Autistic Women & Non-Binary Network and received an Emmy Award for her work on the documentary Art + Medicine: Disability, Culture, & Creativity. She is a Black, queer, femme, first-generation, autistic activist and educator in the Twin Cities, who works with healthcare professionals on disability issues, and their intersections of these issues with race, gender/sexuality, and citizenship.