A blue and green flyer with white text features the cover of Refusing to Be Made Whole, which has an abstracted profile of a head looking toward the sky with radiating lines that resemble a seashell. Below is a portrait of Hinton, a smiling Black woman with an orange shirt and glasses. There are icons for captioning, ASL, and masking indoors, a QR code to more details, and a list of sponsors along the bottom. Banner for Refusing to be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing, A Book Talk with Anna LaQuawn Hinton

Refusing to be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing, A Book Talk with Anna LaQuawn Hinton

by

Academic Black Cultural Center BlackStudies Disability and Human Development Disability Cultural Center English Gender and Sexuality Center Women's Leadership and Resource ...

Wed, Oct 7, 2026

3 PM – 5 PM CDT (GMT-5)

Private Location (sign in to display)

4
Registered

Registration

Details

ID: A blue and green flyer with white text features the cover of Refusing to Be Made Whole, which has an abstracted profile of a head looking toward the sky with radiating lines that resemble a seashell. Below is a portrait of Hinton, a smiling Black woman with an orange shirt and glasses. There are icons for captioning, ASL, and masking indoors, a QR code to more details, and a list of sponsors along the bottom. Flyer for Refusing to be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing, A Book Talk with Anna LaQuawn Hinton
Join us for an afternoon with Black feminist disability studies scholar Anna LaQuawn Hinton, in celebration of her recent book, Refusing to Be Made Whole: Disability in Black Women’s Writing.

In reading canonical and lesser-known works by authors like Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Sapphire, and Sarah E. Wright, Hinton pushes existing conversations in Black feminist disability studies to reckon with the role of Africanist spiritual understandings of wholeness. Hinton tracks how literary works by Black women writers attend to the debilitating and harmful effects of racist-sexist violence while also offering responses to such harm. Grounded in Africanist spiritual practices, these responses ask readers to radically shift away from a disabled/nondisabled binary, positing disability or imperfection as a key element for conceptualizing the human. Hinton develops a new concept, bodymindspirit, as a tool for reading the work of Black women writers who engage disability, a concept acknowledging body, mind, and spirit as inextricable from one another.

Washieka Torres will join us as a respondent.



This event is sponsored by the UIC Disability Cultural Center, Gender & Women’s Studies, Disability and Human Development, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, English, Black Studies, Black Cultural Center, Gender & Sexuality Center, Women’s Leadership & Resource Center, Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, and Institute for the Humanities.

Audience note: This event is open to everyone.

Covid safety information: UIC does not require masking, but we are still masking in our events as an accessibility measure for chronically ill / immunocompromised folks and those living interdependently with them. Please wear a mask if it is accessible for you! We’ll have extras on hand. People may be sipping/eating and then replacing their masks.

Access information: CART (live captions) and ASL interpretation will be provided. The Institute for the Humanities is a physically accessible space on the first floor, equipped with two accessible, all gender restrooms. To create a low-fragrance environment, please refrain from wearing scents. Please get in touch with any access requests or questions at dcc@uic.edu or 312-355-7050!

Getting to the Institute for the Humanities:
The Institute for the Humanities can be entered from the exterior of the Behavioral Sciences Building (BSB) using its dedicated door on Harrison Street, or it can be accessed through the interior of the building by passing through the Computer Lab BSB 125.

Hosted By

Disability Cultural Center | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Women's Leadership and Resource Center and Campus Advocacy Network, Black Cultural Center, Disability Cultural Center (OWNER), Gender and Sexuality Center