Diane Driedger

PhD, University of Manitoba

Diane Driedger is Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Disability Studies. She has been instrumental in the development of the Disability Studies Program at the University of Manitoba over the past seven years, where she was on contract.  She has published 11 books, including the upcoming Still Living the Edges: A Disabled Women’s Reader (Inanna, fall 2021). She is also the author of The Last Civil Rights Movement: Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) (Hurst and St. Martin’s 1989). 

Diane has been at the forefront of the disability rights movement, locally, nationally, and internationally for over 40 years, with organizations such as the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities, Council of Canadians with Disabilities, DisAbled Women’s Network Canada and Disabled Peoples’ International. She has worked for CUSO in Jamaica, and CESO in Trinidad and Tobago with disabled people’s organizations. 

She was a member of the provincial government drafting committee for the Manitoba Accessibility Act (2013-16). She has consulted with the federal government on strategies to enact the federal Canada Accessibility Act. Diane  is currently the Chair of the Arts Accessibility Network of Manitoba (AANM) and she is a visual artist and poet. Her latest poetry book is Red with Living: Poems and Art (Inanna, 2016).