Critical Disability Studies Receives $500,000 Grant

The College of Liberal Arts (CLA) is pleased to announce that the University of Minnesota has received a $500,000 grant to support the development of an intersectional and transnational critical disability studies curricular program.

This funding, from the Mellon Foundation, will allow Critical Disability Studies (CDS) to develop proposals for a curriculum leading to an undergraduate and graduate program. It will also help foster relationships and facilitate conversations about intersectional disability across UMN campuses and in the broader community. The CDS leadership team includes Jessica Horvath Williams (English), Jennifer Row (French & Italian), Angela M. Carter (race, indigeneity, disability, gender & sexuality studies), and Erin L. Durban (anthropology). Members of the CDS hail from across the University system, including Molly Ubbesen (UMN Rochester), whose support was instrumental in securing this grant.

Building on a decade of interdisciplinary collaboration

“There are people thinking about disability across different parts of the University, but because the institution is so large, there isn’t a place for the cross-fertilization of this scholarship that can generate the life-changing thinking and practices our society needs,” says Carter. “We want to be that place.”

Carter was one of three University of Minnesota graduate students who established the Critical Disability Studies Collective in 2015 with the goal of “building a community through the study of social norms that shape our ideas about disability and ability.” Over the last decade, CDS has collaborated with many departments and units across the University system and became officially affiliated with CLA’s Race, Indigeneity, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIGS) Initiative in 2017. “Disability” was added to the name when RIGS became the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIDGS) in 2021.

“We recognize the foundation of CLA’s interdisciplinary strength,” Carter says. “We believe in the power of humanistic thinking toward social change. That is why we are so thrilled to be housed in the liberal arts.”

A transformative approach

Interdisciplinary collaboration is one of four key characteristics that set critical disability studies at UMN apart from programs at other institutions, along with being rooted in intersectional scholarship, fostering inclusive and accessible pedagogy, and a commitment to community engagement. For example, they look forward to continuing to collaborate with AmplifyMN, a local group of disabled activists, organizers, educators, and advocates working to foster disability justice in Minnesota.

“Many principles of disability justice are rooted in interdependency, care, and disability ingenuity,” says Row. “We dream of replicating these non-hierarchical, deeply collaborative structures in our own programmatic work, to build new infrastructures of research, learning, and teaching that are fertilized by knowledge-sources that are typically overlooked by traditional university endeavors.”

The grant will expand current course offerings in CDS. Durban, a professor who has developed and taught courses called Crip Times: Critical Disability Studies Now and Disability Worlds, notes that “students are excited to learn the dynamic and engaged forms of interdisciplinary analysis and praxis in this field. Along the way, they necessarily learn different ways of working with and supporting each other.”

This funding also allows CDS to continue to lead in pedagogical practices that help all learners succeed, honoring the wisdom and power of disability rather than treating it as a deficit. They will continue supporting instructors in developing their teaching practices along with their syllabus content, demonstrating what it can look like to hold more space for self-care within academia.

One in four adults in the US has a disability, compared to one in six globally, and research shows that people and populations who are already marginalized are more likely to be disabled. Students are demanding courses that center intersectional approaches to disability, illness, accessibility, and care, preparing them for graduate programs and careers in a variety of fields.

Liberal arts connections

Housed in CLA, this three-year initiative will receive administrative support from the Department of English, the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and the Institute for Advanced Study.

The University received three other 2025 grants from the Mellon Foundation, two supporting projects in the College of Liberal Arts. Professor Karen Mary Davalos (Chicano & Latino studies) has an ongoing project, Mexican American Art Since 1848, that will be supported with $150,000. Assistant Professor Dwight K. Lewis Jr. (philosophy) and Associate Professor Jessica Gordon-Roth (philosophy) have a project supporting the Center for Canon Expansion & Change. The $500,000 in funding will support and expand its mission of broadening the philosophical canon and training educators to teach around a broader set of ideas.