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Kelly Fritsch

Associate Professor

• PhD (York)
• Email Kelly Fritsch
• 613-520-2600 ext 2617

Areas of Interest

Critical disability studies; science and technology studies; political economy; social movement studies; social and political theory.

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Kelly Fritsch is Canada Research Chair in Disability, Health, and Social Justice and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University.

Her research, teaching, and community contributions focus on the social conditions that render some lives and lifeworlds less livable, centring how practices of collective action, solidarity, and accessibility can confront the disabling, debilitating, and often deadly social relations that undermine livability. To this end, Fritsch leads and supports projects that nurture disability culture, politics, and community, drawing on the friction, ingenuity, and world-building force of social justice practices that reimagine how we care for, support, and show up for one another.

She is the co-author of  (2021), an award-winning children’s book about ableism, accessibility, and disability culture, and co-editor of  (2022) and  (2016). Her most recent book,  (2026), charts a politics of solidarity with which to build a collective commitment to, and responsibility for, one another’s flourishing.

Fritsch also serves as co-editor of the UBC Press series and sits on the editorial board of . Fritsch is cross appointed to the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation and the Institute of Political Economy and is Co-Chair of the �Ӱ�ԭ�� Disability and Access Studies Hub.

Fritsch completed her Ph.D. in Social and Political Thought at York University and was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Women & Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto.

Current Research Projects

Principal Investigator, SSHRC Insight Grant, Mapping the Development and Transformative Impact of Disability Justice in Canada

Co-Principal Investigator, New Frontiers in Research Fund – Exploration, Frictions of Futurity and Cure in Transplant Medicine: Re-Thinking Central Challenges Through Feminist/Crip Science and Technology Studies

Principal Investigator, SSHRC Knowledge Mobilization Grant, A Broken Politics for a Disabled World

Collaborator, SSHRC Insight Grant, Transformative Encounters: Gender and Sexuality Pedagogies in Canada

Select Publications

Books

Fritsch, Kelly and Anne McGuire. Forthcoming. A Broken Politics for a Disabled World. University of Minnesota Press.

Fritsch, Kelly, Jeffrey Monaghan, and Emily van der Meulen, eds. 2022. . Vancouver: UBC Press. 334 pp.

Fritsch, Kelly, Anne McGuire, and Eduardo Trejos. 2021. . Chico, CA: AK Press.

Fritsch, Kelly, Clare O’Connor, and AK Thompson, eds. 2016. . Chico, CA: AK Press. 576 pp.

Edited Journal Issues

Wechuli, Yvonne, Marie Sepulchre, and Kelly Fritsch, eds. Forthcoming. “Affecting, Emoting, and Feeling Disability: Entanglements at the intersection of Disability Studies and the Sociology of Emotion.” Special issue of Frontiers in Sociology.

Fritsch, Kelly, Suze Berkhout, and Alexandra Frankel, eds. 2024. “” Special issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 10(2).

Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, and Chloe Wong-Mersereau, eds. 2023. “” Special issue of Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts, and Humanities. 17(2): 1-138.

Brady, Miranda, Kelly Fritsch, Margaret Janse Van Rensburg, and Kennedy Ryan, eds. 2022. “.” Special issue of Studies in Social Justice. 16(2): 300-533.

Fritsch, Kelly, Aimi Hamraie, Mara Mills, and David Serlin, eds. 2019. “.” Special issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 5(1):1-269.

Fritsch, Kelly, and Anne McGuire, eds. 2018. “.” Special issue of Feminist Formations 30(1): vii-247.

simpkins, reese, and Kelly Fritsch, eds. 2017. “.” Special issue of Somatechnics 7(2): 171-325.

Select Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Fritsch, Kelly. 2024. “Desiring disability in our learning communities: fostering a crip culture of access.” In , edited by Natalie Kouri-Towe, 45-60. Montreal: Concordia University Press.

Linton, Megan, and Kelly Fritsch. 2024. “” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 18(2): 211-227.

Frankel, Alexandra, Eva-Marie Stern, Kelly Fritsch, and Suze Berkhout. 2024. “.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 23: 1-11. DOI: 10.1177/16094069241270460

Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, Brian Keeley, and Bibo Keeley. 2024. “” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 10(2): 1-25.

Wong-Mersereau, Chloe, Fraser Best, Mary Bunch, Alexandra Frankel, Brad Necyk, Lia Tarachansky, Shabnam Sukhdev, Kelly Fritsch, and Suze Berkhout. 2023. “.” Journal of Liver Transplantation. 12:100183.

Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, Alexandra Vieux Frankel, and Kathleen Sheehan. 2022. “.” Journal of Liver Transplantation. 7 (July-September): 1-6.

Fritsch, Kelly and Aimi Hamraie. 2023. “Four Commitments of Crip Technoscience.” In edited by Elizabeth Guffey, 17-34. New York: Bloomsbury. 

Fritsch, Kelly. 2023. “Crip Theory.” In , edited by Rosi Braidotti and Emily Jones, 25-28. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Banbury, Tamara and Kelly Fritsch. 2022. “‘So, you wanna live forever?’ Representations of disability, gender, and technology in Cyberpunk 2077.” In , edited by Jill Fellows and Lisa Smith, 230-245. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.

Fritsch, Kelly, Jeffrey Monaghan, and Emily van der Meulen. 2022. “Resisting the Criminalization of Disability: Cripping Disability Injustice Toward Accessible Decarceral Futures.” In , edited by Kelly Fritsch, Jeffrey Monaghan and Emily van der Meulen, 3-46.Vancouver: UBC Press.

Hamraie, Aimi and Kelly Fritsch. 2019. “.”&�Բ�����;Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 5(1): 1-33.

Select Public Research Contributions

Desai, Saima, Kelly Fritsch, Yasmine Gray, Sarah Jama, Sophie Jean, Rachel Jobson, Megan Linton, Ahona Mehdi, Amani Omar, Destiny Pitters, and Xue, eds. 2022. “.” Briarpatch 51 (5): 1-56.

Fritsch, Kelly and Fady Shanouda. 2022. “.” January 12. The Conversation.

Select Honours and Awards

2023, Research Achievement Award, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University
2022, Harriet McBryde Johnson Award for Nonfiction, Autistic Self-Advocacy Network
2022, Best Educational Children’s Picture Book, International Latino Book Awards
2020, Early Career Research Award, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

Recent Courses

• SOCI 5401 Critical Disability Studies
• SOCI 5005 Recurring Debates in Social Theory
• SOCI 3006 Thinking the Social: Theories and Approaches
• SOCI 3060 Critical Disability Studies
• SOCI 3430 Collective Action and Social Movements