DENISE SHERER JACOBSON
University of California, Berkeley
Regional Oral History Office
Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, CA
(530) 653-1154
shererd@aol.com

Public Lecture Topics:

For the past 20 years, Denise Sherer Jacobson has given lectures to medical students at the University of California, San Francisco on disabilities and sexuality, particularly as it relates to cerebral palsy. Part of her lecture includes the following:

Cerebral palsy is a complex disability to understand and an uncomfortable one to look at: it is easy to dismiss a person with uncoordinated limbs and muscles and labored speech as someone who is not physically or mentally capable of achieving any form of success, especially when this view is fueled by archaic and biased thought and literature. In this society, where judgments are too quickly determined by first impressions, those who of us who have cerebral palsy are faced, over and over again, with a burden of proving that there is so much more to us than meets the eye.

Publications:

• The Question of David: A Disabled Mother's Journey Through Adoption, Family, and Life, Creative Arts Books, 1999
• "American Bandstand," from Prejudice: Stories About Hate, Ignorance, Revelation, and Transformation, Hyperion, 1995

Public Programs:

Panelist, Incorporating Inclusion in the Jewish Community (Temple Sinai, February 1999)

Conferences

• Adoption: Deciding on Parenthood, Bioethics and Disability Panel, Society for Disability Studies Conference, Oakland, CA, June 1998
• Adoption Issues, International Conference on Parents with Disabilities and Their Families, Oakland, CA, October, 1997

Recommendations:

Website: Disability Rights Independent Living Movement

Denise Jacobson has been listed in the Directory of California Thinkers since 28-Apr-1999.