Columbus State Library announces two new events

Student News | Monday, July 18, 2022

The Library will screen the documentary, Deej: Inclusion Shouldn’t be a Lottery, on Thursday, July 21 from 1 to 2 p.m. Register here.

The following week, on Thursday, July 28, from 1 to 2 p.m., the Library will host DJ Savarese as part of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Speaker Series. Savarese will present on “Self-Direction in College.” Register here.

The events will be held in person in the Library Studio, room 111, Columbus Hall. There is also a virtual option available when you register above.  
 
About the film
Abandoned by his birth parents and presumed incompetent, DJ Savarese (“Deej”) found a loving family and a life in words, which he types on a text-to-voice synthesizer. As he makes his way through high school and dreams of college, he confronts the terrors of his past, society's obstacles to inclusion, and the sometimes paralyzing beauty of his own senses. In his advocacy on behalf of other nonspeaking autistics, he embraces filmmaking and poetry and discovers what having a voice can truly mean. At its core, Deej reflects the sort of participation that disability rights advocates insist upon: “Nothing about us without us.”

About DJ Savarese
DJ Savarese is a public speaker, writer, and activist who works to make literacy-based education, communication, and inclusive lives a reality for all nontraditionally speaking people through artful advocacy, teaching, and community organizing. A 2017-19 OSF Human Rights Initiative Youth Fellow alum, he is also the co-producer of the Peabody award-winning, Emmy-nominated documentary Deej: Inclusion Shouldn’t be a Lottery, unearths discrepancies between insider and outsider perspectives of his lived experience as an alternatively-communicating autistic person.

 

 

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