Learn to build a world where everyone belongs. Take free classes at OBI University.   Start Now

Georgina Kleege joined the English department in 2003 where in addition to teaching creative writing classes she teaches courses on representations of disability in literature, and disability memoir. Her collection of personal essays, Sight Unseen (1999) includes an autobiographical account of Kleege’s own blindness, and cultural critique of depictions of blindness in literature, film, and language.
Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller (2006) transcends the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction to re-imagine the life and legacy of this celebrated disability icon. Kleege’s current book, More Than Meets the Eye (forthcoming in 2017), is concerned with blindness and visual art: how blindness is represented in art, how blindness affects the lives of visual artists, how museums can make visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. She has lectured and served as consultant to art institutions around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London.

Media Mentions

December 23, 2020: Essential Books: Art in America Staff Picks to Read (or Reread) Now (ARTnews) 

December 15, 2020: Co-Founding the ACLU, Fighting for Labor Rights and Other Helen Keller Accomplishments Students Don't Learn in School (TIME) 

December 5, 2020: Writing a novel: It gets easier, but also it doesn’t (The Daily Californian) 

November 4, 2020: What’s on TV and radio tonight: Wednesday, November 4 (The Times) 

November 4, 2020: The Disordered Eye review – do you need good eyesight to make great art? (The Guardian) 

October 22, 2020: Superfest Disability Film Festival highlights Blackness, Blindness, impact of audio description services (The Daily Californian) 

October 23, 2020: Born into the ADA (The Daily Californian) 

October 23, 2020: This is our campus, too: Disability in higher education (The Daily Californian) 

October 22, 2020: Community memory is essential to disability justice (The Daily Californian) 

October 8, 2020: The Preservation of Disability (Columbia News) 

May 5, 2020: What to Do (Online) This Week: A Filmmaker Examines Debt, Dependency, and Disability (Hyperallergic) 

April 3, 2020: ‘Asked to stretch and grow’: UC Berkeley faculty struggles, learns to teach online (The Daily Californian) 

February 23, 2020: So you want my arts job: Audio Describer (Arts Hub) 

February 12, 2020: How Museums Are Making Artworks Accessible to Blind People Online (Art News) 

January 22, 2020: At SOMArts, ‘CripTech’ Hacks Tech to Dismantle Ableism (KQED) 

November 18, 2019: UC Berkeley launches scanning service to turn print material into electronic format (The Daily Californian) 

November 13, 2019: ‘Our meaning as a public university’: UC Berkeley Library launches scanning service to make materials more accessible to scholars (Berkeley Library News) 

September 18, 2019: Please touch the fine art: Museums embrace a hands-on approach (The Christian Science Monitor) 

August 6, 2019: Telling While Showing: New Audio Description Services from Jess Curtis/Gravity (KQED) 

July 20, 2019: Please touch this art at Watertown’s Mosesian Center (The MetroWest Daily News) 

June 14, 2019: Summer in the city (The Harvard Gazette) 

June 5, 2019: More Fatter’s Theo Fedronic talks making of new album, upcoming 1st tour (The Daily Californian) 

March 3, 2019: Celebrating (dis)abilities in the workplace (The Weekender) 

February 18, 2019: Galleries from A to Z Sued Over Websites that Blind Can't Use (The New York Times) 

December 18, 2018: Opinion | Flying While Blind (The New York Times) 

November 1, 2018: UC Berkeley’s Disabled Students’ Program is always working to improve (The Daily Californian) 

October 30, 2018: The mathematics of mental disorder (The Daily Californian) 

October 30, 2018: ‘Disability is a diversity category’: An interview with campus lecturer Georgina Kleege (The Daily Californian)

January 24, 2018: A Feel for Art: Haptic Encounter at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (Cal Alumni Association) 

January 17, 2018: How a Blind Professor Is Helping Other Sight-Impaired Museum Visitors Experience Art (Hyperallergic) 

December 11, 2017: ‘Fake’ Braille found in UC Berkeley building 5 months after opening (The Daily Californian) 

November 14, 2017: Napa Camp for the Blind to Rebuild for Future Generations (KQED) 

July 28, 2017: What To Read If You've Been Diagnosed With Chronic Or Mental Illness (Bustle) 

July 6, 2017: Why I used to love making jokes about Helen Keller (NPR)

March 22, 2017: LBRY public sharing platform uploads 20,000 deleted UC Berkeley lectures (The Daily Californian) 

January 25, 2017: Disability activists honor life, legacy of Ed Roberts (The Daily Californian) 

Sept. 19, 2016: Department of Justice alleges campus in violation of Americans with Disabilities Act (DailyCal)

August 21, 2016: Opinion | Becoming Disabled (The New York Times) 

June 7, 2016: Disability Advocates Protest Movie Thursday (Daily Cal) 

February 19, 2016: The Country of the Blind (New Republic) 

January 44, 2014: Why Do We Fear the Blind? (The New York Times) 

November 6, 2013: The White Cane as Technology (The Atlantic) 

February 8, 2008: National Academy of Sciences hosting Katherine Sherwood's 'Golgi's Door' show (UC Berkeley News) 

October 12, 2006: Nicholas Howe, scholar of Anglo-Saxon England, dies at age 53 (UC Berkeley News)