WHO ARE WE?
The Institute on Disability Culture is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Biographies of the Co-Founders follow:
Lillian Gonzales Brown, Co-Founder, Institute on Disability Culture, is an internationally renowned trainer in independent living, advocacy, personal assistance, civil rights, sexuality, peer support, public policy and Disability Culture. She has worked has across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Scandinavia.
Steven E. Brown, Co-Founder, Institute on Disability Culture (IDC), and Professor and Disabilities Scholar at the Center on Disability Studies, University of Hawaii (retired, currently Affiliate Faculty), earned a doctorate in history from the University of Oklahoma in 1981. In the 1980s, he worked at and directed an independent living center in Oklahoma, and organized numerous community coalitions. In 1990, he moved to California where he served as Training Director at the World Institute on Disability. After moving to New Mexico, he co-founded the not-for-profit Institute on Disability Culture, with his wife Lillian Gonzales Brown, in 1994.
Brown's books Movie Stars and Sensuous Scars: Essays on the Journey from
Disability Shame to Disability Pride (2003) and Surprised to be Standing: A Spiritual Journey (2011) are available from online booksellers. Other publications include Investigating a Culture of Disability: Final Report (1994), resulting from the first U.S. funding for research about Disability Culture, from the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research.
Brown relocated to the California Bay Area in summer 2014, but continues to work with the University of Hawaii CDS, which sponsors his 2015 online course, “Disability History and Culture: From Homer to Hip Hop,” for which details are available at: http://www.cds.hawaii.edu/news/10202014/cds-offers-course-disability-history-and-culture
Lillian Gonzales Brown, Co-Founder, Institute on Disability Culture, is an internationally renowned trainer in independent living, advocacy, personal assistance, civil rights, sexuality, peer support, public policy and Disability Culture. She has worked has across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Scandinavia.
Steven E. Brown, Co-Founder, Institute on Disability Culture (IDC), and Professor and Disabilities Scholar at the Center on Disability Studies, University of Hawaii (retired, currently Affiliate Faculty), earned a doctorate in history from the University of Oklahoma in 1981. In the 1980s, he worked at and directed an independent living center in Oklahoma, and organized numerous community coalitions. In 1990, he moved to California where he served as Training Director at the World Institute on Disability. After moving to New Mexico, he co-founded the not-for-profit Institute on Disability Culture, with his wife Lillian Gonzales Brown, in 1994.
Brown's books Movie Stars and Sensuous Scars: Essays on the Journey from
Disability Shame to Disability Pride (2003) and Surprised to be Standing: A Spiritual Journey (2011) are available from online booksellers. Other publications include Investigating a Culture of Disability: Final Report (1994), resulting from the first U.S. funding for research about Disability Culture, from the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research.
Brown relocated to the California Bay Area in summer 2014, but continues to work with the University of Hawaii CDS, which sponsors his 2015 online course, “Disability History and Culture: From Homer to Hip Hop,” for which details are available at: http://www.cds.hawaii.edu/news/10202014/cds-offers-course-disability-history-and-culture