The Disability Lectures

Dr Sarah Lewthwaite explores the challenges and opportunities of building digital futures where accessibility is an essential feature of systems and infrastructure. AI puts us at a crossroads. How can we build an inclusive future? Does the design and development of digital systems accommodate people with a range of needs and requirements? The current answer to this question is not encouraging, and...

Professor Sam Howison explores how an institution like Oxford University can build accessible environments, highlighting the complexities, evolving needs, and broad benefits of inclusive design. The experience of our students and staff as they study and work is wholly bound up with the environment – physical and technical as well as social and cultural – in which we all do these things. The range...

Oxford and Harvard alumna Beth Kume-Holland shares her personal journey from Oxford undergraduate and researcher to award-winning CEO and international disability rights advocate. Disabled people make up 24% of the UK population and 1.85 billion people globally, but all too often disability and accessibility are afterthoughts across institutions, business and society. Beth Kume-Holland will delve...

Dr Jessica Boland shares her experiences as a hard-of-hearing/deaf academic in science and technology, and her passion for improving accessibility in higher education. Oxford University Annual Disability Lecture 2023 'Terahertz, Topology and Telecoil Loops: Going beyond standards’ Dr Jessica Boland (https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/jessica.boland) is an award-winning Lecturer and UKRI...

Dr Amy Kavanagh delivers the 2022 Annual Disability Lecture 2022 Disability Lecture Dr Amy Kavanagh - Hands Off: Navigating unwanted touch, consent and disability From Dr Kavanagh's introduction: "So this lecture today is going to be an exploration of the disabled experience of unwanted touch, forced help and consent. I'm drawing on my lived experience as a blind activist, but I am also grateful t...

Dr Hamied Haroon explores the intersections of disability, science and academia. All views expressed in the lecture are the speaker’s own. To download a transcript of the 2021 Disability Lecture, use the following link(s): Transcript - PDF version (download)

Dr Kate West, a neurodivergent student-turned-academic, reflects on the neurotypical University. To download a transcript of the 2020 Disability Lecture, use the following link(s): Transcript - PDF version (download) https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/admin/disability/2020-05-27_kate_west_annual_transcript.pdf

Jay Abdullahi and Kym Oliver, a team of two black disabled women, reclaim the word ‘cripple’ in their fight against three layers of discrimination. This year’s University of Oxford Disability Lecturers are Jay Abdullahi and Kym Oliver, a team of two black disabled women determined to reclaim the word ‘cripple’ in their fight against three layers of discrimination. Jay is a 29 year old Nigerian Lon...

The Equality and Diversity Unit and TORCH are delighted to announce that Gwyneth Lewis will give the 2018 Disability Lecture. From Gwyneth Lewis's introduction to her lecture: "All good education should cause what feels like an intellectual nervous breakdown in the student. Otherwise, the institution isn’t doing its job of challenging them to abandon old ideas and to grow. For the vast majority of...

Professor Linda Gask had a successful career as psychiatrist and academic, despite living with depression and anxiety. She speaks with candour about her experiences of periods of mental ill-health. From Professor Gask's introduction to her lecture: "I’ve always had an interest in people with common mental health problems – with depression, anxiety, eating problems – rather than more severe mental...

Hilary Lister is giving the first University of Oxford Disability Lecture. Hilary was an undergraduate at Jesus College who has since gained fame as a quadriplegic sailor. She was the first disabled woman to sail solo around Britain. To download a transcript of the 2015 Disability Lecture, use the following link(s): Transcript - PDF version (download) Introduced by the Vice Chancellor, Andrew Hami...