5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Screening of Mommy Dead and Dearest (dir. Erin Lee Carr, 2017)

7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Lectures and performances

What does it mean to be sick, healthy, disabled, or ill?  When, if ever, is a body normal or normally-healthy?  In order to think together about such questions, the DHC welcomes Erin Lee Carr, who will screen and then discuss her documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest, which raises questions about fake identity as well as fake illness (in this case, Munchausen by proxy).  Cicely BogganX joins us to discuss Deaf Culture and the senses in which deafness is not a disability—accompanied by a performance of ASL poetry.  And Allen J. Francis, M.D., the chair of the DSM-IV task force and expert on the politics of diagnosis, will address the topic of confusing “mad and bad” by criminalizing mental illness and medicalizing evil.  Question normality, check your assumptions,  and take your own pulse as the DHC investigates what it means to be truly sick or truly well!