Academic Experience

Education

University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois
Ph.D. Disability Studies
August 2021

University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois
M.S., Disability and Human Development
May 2017                                                                                   

Reed College, Portland, Oregon
B.A., Anthropology
May 2011

Publications

Kopit, Alison and Sandie Yi. “A Dialogue and Reflection about the Masks for Crips Project.” Lateral Special Issue: Crip Pandemic Life: A Tapestry. Fall 2022.

Harrison, Elizabeth and Alison Kopit. “Accessibility at the Bisexual Health Summit: Reflections and Lessons for Planning More Accessible Events.” The Journal of Bisexuality. July 2020.

Kopit, Alison. “Defiant Memory as Disability Justice: An Interview with Patty Berne of Sins Invalid.” American Quarterly. June 2019.

Kopit, Alison. “Disability and Dance.” Disability in American Life: An Encyclopedia of Concepts, Policies, and Controversies. Carol Gill, Robert Gould, Sarah Harris, and Tamar Heller (eds). ABC-CLIO, 2018.

Kopit, Alison and Elizabeth Harrison. “Queer and Disability Intersections.” Disability in American Life: An Encyclopedia of Concepts, Policies, and Controversies. Carol Gill, Robert Gould, Sarah Harris, and Tamar Heller (eds). ABC-CLIO, 2018.

Kopit, Alison. “On Pulling Potatoes, Queer Criphood, and My Heartbeat.” The Spoon Knife Anthology: Thoughts on Compliance, Defiance, and Resistance. N.I. Nicholson and Michael Scott Monje, Jr. (eds). Autonomous Press, 2016.

Original Courses Developed and Taught 

Disability Justice Discussion Group

Developed and Co-facilitated May-September 2020; Virtual Community Space

  • A group of therapists, social workers, teachers, and healthcare workers met biweekly eight times over Zoom to raise consciousness surrounding Disability Justice and ableism. Originally developed to debrief and ask questions related to topics introduced in the “Crip Camp Virtual Experience,” this group became a close-knit community. Participants asked complex questions and supported one another in thinking about how to integrate disability justice into their everyday lives. This more informal group was, in large part, self-directed, but my collaborator and I also brought short PowerPoint presentations along with our own experiences and expertise in Disability Studies and the Disability Justice movement to share and shape discussions.

DST 2020: Introduction to Disability Studies

Developed and Taught Fall and Spring 2019; University of Toledo; Toledo, Ohio

  • This blended (online and in-person) introductory level Disability Studies course introduced undergraduate students from a range of majors to the field of Disability Studies. It incorporated units surrounding disability history, bioethics, accessibility, disability arts and culture, media representations of disability, the Disability Rights Movement, and Disability Justice.

DST 3030: Disability Culture
Developed and Taught Fall and Spring 2019; University of Toledo; Toledo, OH

  • This blended (online and in-person) Disability Studies curriculum introduced undergraduate students to disability arts, culture, and activism through a humanities lens. With units covering material such as disability identity, stereotypes and tropes, Mad pride, Deaf culture, accessibility in art, storytelling, and memoir, students learned about the ways that disabled people create culture. The course culminated in a creative component where students proposed, developed, and presented their own contribution to disability culture.

DST 4940: Internship
Taught and Supervised Fall 2019; University of Toledo; Toledo, OH

  • In this service-learning curriculum, Disability Studies majors built relationships with an organization that serves or interacts with disabled people, applying their Disability Studies learning to practice over a minimum of 145 hours through the semester. The instructor met with students regularly, interacting with them through journal reflections and other assignments, as well as communicated with site supervisors.

DST 3030: Disability Culture (online)

Developed and Taught Summer 2019; University of Toledo; Toledo, Ohio

  • This online curriculum was developed and taught as a 6-week course. It was a truncated version of the blended course, DST 3030 (above).

Maximizing Accessibility: A Curriculum for Disability Art, Media, and Culture          
Developed Spring 2018

  • This in person curriculum was developed and proposed for DePaul’s Summer 2019 College Connect Program. “Maximizing Accessibility” is a humanities curriculum that examines disability and accessibility through art, media, and culture. The class gives students an opportunity to observe and critique access through field trips to cultural institutions such as museums and community centers, to experiment with incorporating access into their own art practices or academic work, and to generate ideas about how to increase accessibility in their own communities. This course was not taught.

QueerCrip Aesthetics Working Group: A Curriculum of Embodied Art
Developed 2016; University of Illinois at Chicago; Chicago, IL

  • The “Queer/Crip Aesthetics Working Group” was developed as a series of workshops that asked queer and disabled artists to consider the ways that identity and embodiment can be used as creative material for our art practices. Each session designed opportunities for the working group to engage with politicized and intersectional material, develop their own creative practices, and critique each other’s art in a community-based setting. This curriculum was fully developed for credit for DHD 594: Curriculum Design at University of Illinois—Chicago, though it was not taught.

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant to Akemi Nishida
January 2020-May 2020; January 2020-May 2021
Disability, Race, Class, Gender
UIC, Department of Disability and Human Development; Chicago, IL

Teaching Assistant to Alyson Patsavas
August 2020-December 2020
Disability in the Humanities
UIC, Department of Disability and Human Development; Chicago, IL

Visiting Assistant Professor - Instructor of Record
January 2019-December 2019
Introduction to Disability Studies
Disability Culture
Internship
University of Toledo, Department of Disability Studies; Toledo, OH                                                                                               

Lead Teaching and Administrative Assistant to Randall Owen
August 2018-December 2018
Capstone
UIC, Department of Disability and Human Development; Chicago, IL

Lead Teaching Assistant to Hailee Yoshizaki Gibbons
January 2017-May 2018
Capstone
UIC, Department of Disability and Human Development; Chicago, IL

Teaching and Administrative Assistant to Carrie Sandahl
August 2015-May 2017
Disability and American Film
UIC, Department on Disability and Human Development; Chicago, IL    

Research Experience

Research Coordinator to Simi Linton’s Proclaiming Disability Arts, New York University, September 2021-present
Project and Work Description: In this project, I bring a researcher’s sensibility to a project charting the past, present, and future of Disability Arts. By connecting Linton’s words and ideas to past research and arts exploration, as well as mark departures and convergences with the ideas and practices of disability justice leaders, I support Linton in making her book a robust and comprehensive examination of the field.

Dissertation, UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, Department of Disability and Human Development, May 2021
Paper Title: Sanctuary and Revolution: Reaching Toward Disability Justice in Cultural Spaces
Project Description: At the core of this project is the question of how to activate cultural spaces to become centers of Disability Justice. In activist collectives, museums, performance venues, and festivals, there is often the desire to be inclusive, but a lack of skills and knowledge about how to carry this out through justice-building pathways. Through case studies from my professional and artistic experiences, I develop a strategy for how to maximize accessibility and build sustainable and intersectional practices with a Disability Justice approach.

 

Master’s Thesis, UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, Department of Disability and Human Development, Spring 2017
Paper Title: Toward a Queer Crip Aesthetic: Dance, Performance, and the Disabled Bodymind
Project Description: This humanities thesis explores representations of disability in performance, and ultimately calls for more access to art and art education that celebrates queer sexuality, cultivates pride, builds community and coalition, and approaches the disabled bodymind as a valuable source of creative material.