kristen tollan 💖

thank you for sharing 🥰

“…whilst books really are just books – they can be a uniquely valuable way to connect to others who are like us, all whilst carving out ideas that can educate those who are not.”

💜

she’s a ten but she’s kris(ten)

To anyone who was following this saga– I managed to secure a TA position for the 2025/26 school year – phew! Although it's not the role that I was hoping to go back to, you can find me making my return to live (Zoom) tutorials this coming year as a TA for a course on "the future of work"!

i will not let the world darken my heart

It’s a long story but I might not have a position to return to as a graduate student TA this fall … if you know anyone looking for a (🇨🇦) research assistant (or similar) in disability studies, media studies, communications, children studies, education or the like, please reach out!

I see a quiz, I take a quiz... and I feel like it's both accurate and rude 😂 my first 4 that I recognized (all with a score of 80% or more, Marianne being my #1 match) are Marianne from Normal People, Penelope from Criminal Minds, Damien from Mean Girls and Alice from Twilight 🤭

Just a few more days to submit to the FSNNA 2025 #fanstudies conference! Our theme this year is Reputation: Influence, Power, & Capital.

🤔Pick from: poster OR poster + talk
✍️Due: Abstract, bio, keywords
⏰Deadline: Monday, May 19

Full CFP & form here: fsn-northamerica.org/2025/04/11/g...

The University of Glasgow & the British Library have announced a fully funded PhD Studentship on "Fanfiction and Online Fan Communities: Collecting Practice and Inclusion in a National Collection"

www.gla.ac.uk/scholarships...

"The blank document can also pose near-infinite possibilities for those of us accustomed to stories prewritten for us, those of us aching to break out of normative frameworks of value."

Check out my latest with @rootedinrights.bsky.social on a crucial daily practice as a disabled&Mad writer.

It’s not PhD related but ins other news: I have an MRI on my ankle tonight at 2am (😭) to explore a tarsal coalition my doctor found in an x-ray in December 2024… hoping this is able to help me move forward in addressing my issues with pain and mobility BEYOND cerebral palsy. But 2am?! 😩

It’s wonderful! So nice to see a book about something so dear to my heart! Thank you for writing it!!

well the news was not what I’d hoped, but at least that means I don’t have to fly from California to Manchester in one weekend to make my friend’s wedding 😂

Checking my email today for news from @oii.ox.ac.uk @berkeleyischool.bsky.social almost as frequently as I did last May for SSHRC results 🙃🫣

Vanishing Culture report

Digital ownership matters. Without it, the past—and the truth—can vanish in an instant. 🕳️ #VanishingCulture archive.org/details/vani...

/🧵

Ch. 4 of this book arrives just when I need to read it: "Care at the End of the World: Health/Care Infrastructure and Disability Justice Life-Writing"

A teen with autism and his mom were getting help planning for college. Then came DOGE. A federally funded research program helped students with disabilities prepare for life after high school. DOGE’s sweeping Education Department cuts brought this and dozens of other studies to an abrup...

Teens with disabilities were getting help with life after high school. Then DOGE started cutting. www.chalkbeat.org/2025/02/26/t...

… (2/2) But as a grad student TA, it’s easy (for me at least) to get imposter syndrome and feel overwhelmed with grading. I’ve definitely regraded things before. I’m pleased that I’m starting to feel confident in my grading abilities, especially since I hope to have a professor role one day.

I received an email from a student today asking me to reconsider their grade on an assignment. I went back to look at the comments I gave, and I stood by the mark I gave. I’m not saying this to belittle the student, of course… (1/2)

PhD life so far in Feb ‘25:
received a reference letter so nice it made me cry;
finished an example of the photo-voice project I’m doing in my diss;
nearly completed the participant handbook;
my diss proposal moved to the ethics eval stage;
started a spreadsheet to keep track of quotes etc
😴

Its not even an original monstrous thought, because that is just how awful RFK Jr is.
In the 19th century, many asylums, epileptic colonies, and other institutional spaces had farms attached to them. To exploit disabled people's labor with the excuse that that labor would "cure" or "fix" them.

It seems the website has been updated and they’re coming out on Feb 28!

Photograph of the book How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic on a wood shelf next to a vase with red tulips. The book has a black paperback cover featuring a blue surgical mask printed with the title in red. The cover image was created by the artists The Brothers Sick, Ezra and Noah Benus. In the bottom right hand corner in white print are listed the editors' names: Mara Mills, Harris Kornstein, Faye Ginsburg, Rayna Rapp

A photograph of two pages from the color insert in the middle of How to be Disabled in a Pandemic. Two dried mushrooms are being used as paperweights to hold the book open. On the left page is a photograph of an installation in Washington Square Park titled Curtain Armor by Chong Gu and Yin Q. The artwork was part of a vigil organized by Red Canary Song commemorating the 8 lives lost during a shooting at an Asian massage parlor in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Curtain armor is composed of two massage tables, set in Washington Square, and surrounded by white curtains on which hang portraits. On the right hand page is a photograph titled View of Protest Traveling Down Park Row, taken by autistic photographer Christopher Lucka during the Black Lives Matter protests in New York City in summer 2020.

How to be Disabled in a Pandemic is a collective research effort (w/ @harriskornstein.bsky.social among many others) to document ableism & disability activism in NYC during the first 4 years of COVID-19. Out next month from @nyupress.bsky.social -- a surprise of advance copies in yesterday's mail:

honey, this limerence isn't big enough for the two of us

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

Not particularly related to academia, but I finally got my hands on this book I've been wanting for ages! As a journal girly trying to get back into reading, this is everything I need.

Has anyone heard any updates on our submissions from @cp25atlanta.bsky.social yet? 😀

At least 2 victims of the California wildfires had cerebral palsy. Their deaths didn’t need to happen, and further demonstrate that changes need to be made to the way we consider our disabled community members. They shouldn’t be left behind. Having CP too, this breaks my heart and terrifies me.

Internet friends are real friends & memes are a love language this doesn't need explaining nobody should spend all of their wild & precious life online but what we do here can be meaningful even if you don't have the words sometimes a single emoji can carry the entire weight of our incoherent hearts as if it were a love letter your thumbs have the power to type life or death so choose to use them to amplify the dignity of all who scroll here

I found this poem by David Gate on IG today. It does a beautiful job of putting into words why I am writing this dissertation about disabled friendships and social media. Internet friends are just as real as offline friends and for some disabled people the web is a vital way to build community.

[Image description: neon green slide with black and white text says "are you a student, designer, or activist invested in designing a more accessible world? Join us for the summer institute on disability and design. July 9-July 18, 2025. ASL, CART, Virtual. Apply at labsforliberation.org. In the background is a graphic symbol of a circuit]

Announcing the Labs for Liberation Summer Institute on Disability and Design! Are you a student, designer, or activist who is invested in designing a more accessible world? Join us July 9-July 18 for a virtual, free, and accessible online summer program.

Introducing myself (not a reintroduction haha)!

Name: Kristen
Pronouns: she/her
Location: Greater Toronto Area
Interests: (outside of academia) journaling, drawing, pop culture, cozy video games, reading, collecting analogue media and snuggling my pets
Occupation: PhD candidate