Marion L. Quirici is a Lecturing Fellow of the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. Coming from a background in English and disability studies, she studies the narratives that cultures create to justify inequality on the basis of disability. Modern democracies fail to uphold their promises of “justice for all” when citizenship and rights are bound up with notions of intelligence and ability.
At Duke, her courses train students to critique and revise cultural assumptions about disability by analyzing language, the media, popular representations, the law, institutional spaces and practices, and the built environment. She has designed and taught courses on “Disability and Representation” and “Modernism and Madness.”
She is also the faculty advisor of the Duke Disability Alliance, a student organization working to make the college experience more accessible and inclusive, not only for students with disabilities, but for everyone. With her colleague Dr. Ashley Elrod (History), and with support from the Health Humanities Lab, she also runs a faculty working group called the Disability and Access Initiative, which brings together faculty from the humanities, the social sciences, the Global Health Institute, the School of Medicine, the School of Law, and the Divinity School.
In the community, she is active in the Independent Living movement, serving on the governor-appointed Statewide Independent Living Council as well as on the board of directors for the Alliance of Disability Advocates in Raleigh.
