The ongoing project Dialogues on Disability, curated by philosopher Shelley Tremain, is set to release its one hundred and thirty-sixth installment on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. This platform serves as a sustained, monthly intervention into the academic discipline of philosophy, documenting the experiences and analytical contributions of disabled scholars.
The series functions as an explicit challenge to institutional exclusions and systemic biases within academia. Its primary objective is to create a space for discourse on:
Philosophical inquiries into the nature of disability.
Structural analysis regarding the position of disability studies within professional philosophy.
Documentation of marginalization, including experiences of gaslighting, ableism, and racism.
Advocacy for anti-oppressive pedagogical frameworks.
"I would rather draw on Ahmed’s martial metaphor and conceive of this series of interviews as an army: a collection of disabled arms locked in opposition to making the field whole, or an arsenal of sharpened spears ready to be hurtled at the edifice of the field of philosophy." — Johnathan Flowers
Contextualizing the Series
The series, which began in 2015, has maintained a consistent output on the third Wednesday of each month, published via the BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY portal. By centering the voices of disabled thinkers—who are often peripheralized by traditional institutional gatekeepers—the project maps a long-term resistance to the exclusionary norms embedded in academic life.
Analysis of Scope
The upcoming session intends to address intersections of Afro-futurism, Black futures, semantics, and precarity. The longevity of this project suggests a shift from sporadic academic interest to a durable, critical repository of thought. Unlike brief seminars or singular events, this archive serves as a ledger of ongoing intellectual and physical resistance.
Read More: Philosophy and Social Criticism Volume 52 Issue 1 publishing delay 2026
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Project Lead | Shelley Tremain |
| Established | April 2015 |
| Platform | BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY |
| Frequency | Monthly (Third Wednesday) |
| Core Function | Archiving disabled philosophers' intellectual labor |
The work relies on a decentralized model of support via platforms such as Patreon, reinforcing its status as an independent entity operating outside the traditional structures of academic funding and peer-review hegemony. The series continues to prioritize the visibility of disabled scholars as active agents in the transformation of their own field, rather than mere subjects of study.