2023 Sawatsky Lecture
Thursday, February 2nd, 2023, 7:30 PM EST
This year's lecture will be held in-person and livestreamed.
All are welcome. Reception to follow.
The 2023 Rodney and Lorna Sawatsky Visiting Lecturer is by Darla Schumm, associate provost and Professor of religious studies at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.
The Power of Misfitting: Disrupting Sinner, Saint, and Super Crip Controlling Images
Using Patricia Hill Collins’ delineation of “controlling images,” Darla Schumm identifies three of the most prevalent controlling images religious communities ascribe to people with disabilities. She argues that the sinner, saint, and super-crip controlling images produce, reinforce, and perpetuate the ideological justification-whether intentionally or unintentionally- for designating people with disabilities as the inferior other within their religious communities. Schumm ultimately offers Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s conception of misfitting as a deliciously disruptive controlling image as well as an avenue for reorienting our thinking about disability more generally, and for complicating the sinner, saint, and super-crip controlling images in particular.

Darla Schumm is the associate provost and professor of religious studies at Hollins University—a small liberal arts college for female-identified students located in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Roanoke, Virginia. Darla received her B.A. in interdisciplinary studies with concentrations in history, psychology, and women’s studies from Goshen College, her M.A. in social ethics from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, and her Ph.D. in religion, ethics, and society from Vanderbilt University. Schumm’s current research focuses on intersections between religious studies and disability studies. She is the coeditor of four books, most recently Disability and World Religions: An Introduction (Baylor University Press, 2016), as well as the author of numerous articles and opinion pieces. Darla is working on a monograph tentatively titled: Accessible Love: The Work of Transformational Disability Justice.
About the Sawatsky Lectures

The Rodney and Lorna Sawatsky Visiting Scholar Lecture was established in 2004 to honour Rodney’s tenure and Lorna’s involvement at Conrad Grebel University College.
Dr. Rodney Sawatsky joined the faculty of Conrad Grebel in 1974, teaching in the areas of History, Religious Studies, Mennonite Studies, and Peace and Conflict Studies. He served the college as Academic Dean from 1974-89 and as President from 1989-94.
Sawatsky provided inspiration and impetus for the development of the College’s graduate program in Theological Studies. As Dean and then President he significantly shaped the strong faculty that defined Grebel’s distinctive academic profile for more than three decades.
Rodney and his wife Lorna were key figures at Conrad Grebel, the University of Waterloo, and in the local community. Since Rodney’s death in 2004, Lorna has continued to support and advocate for causes that were important to them both.
In keeping with Rodney Sawatsky’s own academic interests, the Sawatsky Visiting Scholar is awarded to renowned scholars, practitioners and performers — representing a wide range of academic and creative disciplines — who bring their expertise to the Grebel community.
Contributions to the endowment fund that supports the Sawatsky Visiting Scholar are welcome. See Director of Advancement, Fred W. Martin.