Hi there, and welcome. My name is Jess M. F. Hughes. I’m a discourse analyst and disability rights advocate.
This blog and its accompanying pages are devoted to my academic and professional work. This is a space for me to post resources and geek out about ideas that matter to me.
The big idea that drives me as a discourse analyst is the interrelationship between communication and society. I’m fascinated by the ways in which we communicate social relationships into being and the ways in which social relationships shape communication. My research and teaching focus on how we use language to build interpersonal relationships, to enact community and create organization, to drive social movements, and to entrench, challenge, and dismantle oppressive social inequities. My current research focuses on disability rights and neurodiversity advocacy online. For a more detailed description of my research program and a list of publications and conference presentations, see my Research page.
As a disability rights advocate, I’m driven by injustice. We live in a world where dis/ableism is so entrenched that accessibility is often an afterthought, in which disabled voices are excluded, where disabled people are silenced, abused, killed. My scholarly work looks to redress oppression faced by people with disabilities by spreading disability awareness, amplifying disabled voices, exposing the discursive mechanisms that perpetuate dis/ableism, and theorizing ways of making the world a better place. In my activist work, I put principles to practice by fighting for disability rights and social justice in my community and online.
I earned my PhD in Communication from the University of Colorado Boulder. I got my MA in Language Studies at Lancaster University (England). And I studied German Language and Literature as an undergrad at Boston University. I really miss taking classes. Luckily, I still have the pleasure of teaching them. To see a list of courses I’ve taught and some teaching resources I’ve used, please see my Teaching page.
You’re also welcome to check out my CV.
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