Publications & Presentations

Looking Back to Move Forward: Visions for a Just Future in Education
Queens University, Kingston 

Paper Presentation: Mandated Movement 
This paper will speak to the concept of ‘mandated movement’; the enforced physical activity or exercise of participants within an institution by way of policy or political directive. This investigation began by exploring Policy 138, Daily Physical Activity in Ontario (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2017) put forth by the Ministry of Education and its similarity to Canadian Correctional Service Commissioner’s Directive Number 760, Social Programs and Leisure Activities (Head, 2016) which includes daily exercise. As research unfolded, a close reading of policy documents unraveled the inherent ableist definition of health as provided by Policy 138 to further determine its long-term goal, citizenship rhetoric emerged. This paper contends with the confines of a ‘good citizen’ that are built at the local/provincial level in public elementary schools, but are also an interest of the federal government with regard to nation-building and how non-conforming bodies and disabled people mitigate these mandates and their identities as citizens

Women Who Create in 2025: The Feminine and the Arts 
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom 

Paper Presentation:   Thoughts, Theses & Life Itself : Matrescence in the Academy a Journey of Making and Chronic Pain 

Written in both poem and prose this work of autotheory aims to explore the experience of gestation as figurative, academic and biological experience. In considering the parallels of matrescence and scholarship during my Masters in Critical Disability Studies. Through a feminist lens this work will thoughtfully explore themes of holding and taking up space both intellectual and physical, a journey of chronic pain and motherhood in academia. This work culminates in celebrating the possibility of creation attributable to women; thoughts, theses and life itself.

Toronto Graduate Student Research Conference

United by Diversity: Strategies and Solutions for Equitable Education
Toronto Metropolitan University

Paper Presentation: Mandated Movement 
This paper will speak to the concept of ‘mandated movement’; the enforced physical activity or exercise of participants within an institution by way of policy or political directive. This investigation began by exploring Policy 138, Daily Physical Activity in Ontario (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2017) put forth by the Ministry of Education and its similarity to Canadian Correctional Service Commissioner’s Directive Number 760, Social Programs and Leisure Activities (Head, 2016) which includes daily exercise. As research unfolded, a close reading of policy documents unraveled the inherent ableist definition of health as provided by Policy 138 to further determine its long-term goal, citizenship rhetoric emerged. This paper contends with the confines of a ‘good citizen’ that are built at the local/provincial level in public elementary schools, but are also an interest of the federal government with regard to nation-building and how non-conforming bodies and disabled people mitigate these mandates and their identities as citizens

DST605: Sexuality, Desire & Disability
Toronto Metropolitan University

Guest Lecturer: Challenging the White Colonial Legacy of the Human

Not a Checkbox: Engaging in a Culture of Equitable Teaching
[DEDI] Community Practice & Teaching
York University

Presentation of "A Fat Teacher's Manifesto: Introduction to Fat-Informed, Compassion Based Teaching"

This paper aims to critique the systemic oppression of fatness within the Physical Education space. Firstly, acknowledging that fatness has long been viewed not only as a medical issue but as personal failure in need of intervention. This paper will propose how the medical model of disability within education creates punitive and disciplinary systems for fat students, particularly children. We will explore how the Ontario Physical Education system subjugates fat bodies, drawing on language used within curriculum and policy in Ontario to support the medical model of disability.

Liminal: The Second Annual Critical Femininities Conference
York University

Fringe-Fat

An autho-ethnographic talk to explore the nuances of the body-positivity movement. Exploring concepts of internalized fat-phobia, gastric bypass surgery and cancel culture, how do fat-bodies find themselves on the fringe of even fat-studies themselves.

Feminist Digital Methods Event and Conference
York University

Please Comment on My Body, I Beg of You; 
Fatness, Pregnancy & Representation in a Digital Age

Profound feelings and embodied self-acceptance were sometimes met with stark loneliness as my pregnancy coexisted with several coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdowns and transitions to online work and socializing. This paper explores my experience of fat-pregnancy as I engaged in the liminal space of COVID-19 digital citizenship.

Somatic Cartography Conference
English Graduate Studies at York University

A Personal Account of Being the Fat Teacher

A personal narrative on the experiences of being ‘the fat teacher’. This paper details the physical and emotional challenges faced and the liminal space between fat-shame and fat-acceptance. Acknowledging the body as a location for learning, this paper describes the author’s unique and individual experience when thanked for being fat by a parent of a fat child. Written in illustrative prose this paper explores the entanglement of identity, oppression and acceptance.

Publication

Pivot, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies & Thought

Di Giammarino, O. (2022). A Personal Account of Being the Fat Teacher. Pivot: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Thought, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.25071/2369-7326.40319

​

​