About the Event
In this installment of the Humanities, Health and Medicine Lecture Series, Julie Avril Minich, Ph.D., presents “Deny, Defend, Depose: Luigi Mangione and the Cultural Politics of Illness and Disability.”
The story drew national attention during the final weeks of 2024: the CEO of a health insurance company known for its egregious care denials assassinated in public while attending an investors’ meeting, the week-long hunt for the assassin and, yes, the obsessive social media speculation about his attractiveness, based solely on the shape of his eyebrows. Yet once Luigi Mangione — an Ivy League-educated “techbro” from a wealthy family and without a clear political alignment — was identified as the suspected murderer, any illusion of consensus around how to interpret his actions quickly dissolved. This talk is an analysis not of Mangione’s alleged actions but of the meaning that people living with disabilities and chronic illness have sought to make of the case in social media spaces. The questions it asks are: Can the social media archive that has arisen around Luigi Mangione constitute a viable form of political mobilization around health care reform — and, if so, how?
Minich holds joint associate professorship appointments in the departments of English and Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at UT’s College of Liberal Arts. Her books include “Accessible Citizenships: Disability, Nation, and the Cultural Politics of Greater Mexico” (Temple University Press, 2014) and “Radical Health: Unwellness, Care, and Latinx Expressive Culture” (Duke University Press, 2023).
A reception follows the lecture.
For questions or more information on the event, email Phillip Barrish.
The Humanities, Health and Medicine Lecture Series is co-presented by the Humanities Institute at the College of Liberal Arts and Dell Medical School. The series brings prominent writers, clinicians and researchers to the UT campus to explore humanistic approaches to health and medicine.
The series is supported by a generous gift from Jill Hall and Sterling Smith, as well as by the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities from the College of Liberal Arts.