Laura Mauldin, National Fellow, is a writer and associate professor at the University of Connecticut. Trained in sociology and disability studies, her writing about disability, ableism, and care has appeared in outlets such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Baffler, and the American Prospect. Mauldin is working on a book, Care Nation, which investigates America’s failure to provide meaningful support to disabled people and the resulting reliance on unpaid family caregivers, such as spouses. The book blends research, reporting, and her experience caring for her late partner and will be published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Selected Work
- Widow’s Peak: An essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books about the long-lasting trauma and devastation of caring for a terminally ill partner.
- Care Tactics: An essay in the Baffler documenting ingenious hacks that disabled people and caregivers have to come up with to make homes accessible.
- The Care Crisis Isn’t What You Think: An op-ed in the American Prospect arguing that while our care crisis is manufactured through bad policy, it's the entrenched ableism in our culture that allows these policies to continue.
- Support Mechanism: Technology Can’t Provide care, Only Redistribute Who Gives It and How: An essay in Real Life Magazine that documents the extensive required expertise of unpaid family caregivers as they master sophisticated medical technologies, but also must creatively repurpose household objects.
- Disability at Home: A website and photo project that shares the collective knowledge of disability and caregiving communities when it comes to making life work.