Critical disability studies; science and technology studies; political economy; social movement studies; social and political theory.
Kelly Fritsch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University with research expertise in critical disability studies, crip theory, and disability justice. Her research, teaching, and community contributions are united by a deep commitment to transforming the ableist social relations that structurally exclude, oppress, and debilitate disabled people. Fritsch leads and supports projects that build anti-assimilationist disability culture, politics, and community, and that mobilize the generative frictions of disability to advance accessibility and social justice. Fritsch is cross appointed to the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation and the Institute of Political Economy. She is co-editor of the Disability Culture and Politics Series at UBC Press and also sits on the editorial board of the open access international journal, Disability Studies Quarterly. Fritsch is author and editor of three books and seven special journal issues, as well as over 35 book chapters and journal articles. She regularly teaches courses in critical disability studies, social theory, and social movement studies. Prior to joining the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in 2018, 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.
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
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. Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press. 334 pp.
Fritsch, Kelly, Anne McGuire, and Eduardo Trejos. 2021. We Move Together. Chico, CA: AK Press.
Fritsch, Kelly, Clare O’Connor, and AK Thompson, eds. 2016. Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. Chico, CA: AK Press. 576 pp.
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. “Frictions of Futurity in Transplant Medicine.” Special issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 10(2).
Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, and Chloe Wong-Mersereau, eds. 2023. “Curative Tensions, Artistic Re-imaginings, and Frictions of Temporality in Transplantation.” 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. “Autism_Media_Social Justice.” Special issue of Studies in Social Justice. 16(2): 300-533.
Fritsch, Kelly, Aimi Hamraie, Mara Mills, and David Serlin, eds. 2019. “Crip Technoscience.” Special issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 5(1):1-269.
Fritsch, Kelly, and Anne McGuire, eds. 2018. “Queer/Crip Contagions.” Special issue of Feminist Formations 30(1): vii-247.
simpkins, reese, and Kelly Fritsch, eds. 2017. “The Somatechnics of Sexuality in Canada.” Special issue of Somatechnics 7(2): 171-325.
Fritsch, Kelly. 2024. “Desiring disability in our learning communities: fostering a crip culture of access.” In Reading the Room: Lesson on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom, edited by Natalie Kouri-Towe, 45-60. Montreal: Concordia University Press.
Linton, Megan, and Kelly Fritsch. 2024. “Cripistemologies of drug use against transinstitutional carceral ableism.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 18(2): 211-227.
Frankel, Alexandra, Eva-Marie Stern, Kelly Fritsch, and Suze Berkhout. 2024. “Surface and Depth in Sensory Ethnography: Casting Bodied Experience in an Arts-Based Interviewing Practice.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 23: 1-11. DOI: 10.1177/16094069241270460
Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, Brian Keeley, and Bibo Keeley. 2024. “Troubling Transplant Temporality through Crip Technoscience and a Sensory Aesthetics of Time, Machine, and Health.” 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. “Layered Methodologies: Innovating Qualitative Research in Liver Transplantation Through Sensory Ethnography, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Digital Storytelling.” Journal of Liver Transplantation. 12:100183.
Berkhout, Suze, Kelly Fritsch, Alexandra Vieux Frankel, and Kathleen Sheehan. 2022. “Obligation and the ‘Gift of Life’: Understanding Frictions Surrounding Advance Care Planning and Goals of Care Discussions in Liver Transplant Settings.” Journal of Liver Transplantation. 7 (July-September): 1-6.
Fritsch, Kelly and Aimi Hamraie. 2023. “Four Commitments of Crip Technoscience.” In After Universal Design: The Disability Design Revolution, edited by Elizabeth Guffey, 17-34. New York: Bloomsbury.
Fritsch, Kelly. 2023. “Crip Theory.” In More Posthuman Glossary, 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 Gender, Sex, and Tech!: An Intersectional Feminist Guide, 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 Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canada, edited by Kelly Fritsch, Jeffrey Monaghan and Emily van der Meulen, 3-46.Vancouver: UBC Press.
Hamraie, Aimi and Kelly Fritsch. 2019. “Crip Technoscience Manifesto.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. 5(1): 1-33.
Desai, Saima, Kelly Fritsch, Yasmine Gray, Sarah Jama, Sophie Jean, Rachel Jobson, Megan Linton, Ahona Mehdi, Amani Omar, Destiny Pitters, and Xue, eds. 2022. “Disability Justice.” Briarpatch 51 (5): 1-56.
Fritsch, Kelly and Fady Shanouda. 2022. “Warehousing disabled people in long-term care homes needs to stop. Instead, nationalize home care.” January 12. The Conversation.
2023, Research Achievement Award, Carleton University2022, Harriet McBryde Johnson Award for Nonfiction, Autistic Self-Advocacy Network2022, Best Educational Children’s Picture Book, International Latino Book Awards2020, Early Career Research Award, Carleton University
