Roskill Symposium: "Art Without Barriers" with Andrew Leland

Please note this event occurred in the past.
September 19, 2025 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm ET
Register HERE Register HERE
Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass Amherst

Art Without Barriers: Disability, Accessibility, & the Arts

Friday, September 19, 2025 | Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass Amherst

The second-year MA cohort in the Department of the History of Art & Architecture is thrilled to announce the 26th Annual Mark Roskill Symposium in Art History: "Art Without Barriers: Disability, Accessibility, & the Arts" with keynote speaker Andrew Leland.

  • Refreshments will be served from 2:00–2:30 p.m.
  • The keynote will begin at 2:30 p.m.
  • A panel discussion and audience Q&A will follow.
  • The event will conclude by 5:00 p.m., allowing time to attend the opening of A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice at the Smith College Museum of Art (5:00–7:00 p.m.).

The keynote speaker will be Andrew Leland, writer, audio producer, and author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight—a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir. Leland’s talk will expand on the themes of chapter five, “Camera Obscura,” a thoughtful reflection on his—and the broader blind community’s—relationship to art and long-held assumptions about perception, interpretation, and self-expression.

Following the keynote, a panel of esteemed respondents will offer reflections:

  • Jina B. Kim, Assistant Professor of English and the Study of Women & Gender, Smith College
  • Charlene Shang Miller, Educator for Academic Programs, Smith College Museum of Art
  • Finnegan Shannon, Brooklyn-based artist experimenting with forms of access

We hope you’ll join us for an afternoon of conversation and reflection on the intersections of disability, accessibility, and the arts.

ASL interpretation, live captioning, and accessible seating will be provided. For additional accommodations or other
inquiries, please contact [email protected].

If you would like to attend the symposium via Zoom, please register here.