Available for Download

MS Word Syllabus | PDF Syllabus

Jump to Section

1. Focus of Course

2. Learning Objectives

3. Assignments

4. Structure of the Class

5. Grade Breakdown

6. Accommodations

7. Semester Overview

 

Focus of Course

This course will offer an overview of theoretical and historical responses to bodily and cognitive difference.  What was the status of people with (dis)abilities in the past, when they were called monsters, freaks, abnormal? How are all of these concepts related, and how have they changed over time?  How have we moved from isolation and institutionalization towards universal design and accessibility as the dominant concepts relative to (dis)ability?  Why is this shift from focusing on individual differences as a negative attribute to reshaping our architectural and social constructions important for everyone?  Authors to be studied include: Subini Annamma, Georges Canguilhem, Lennard Davis, Nirmala Erevelles, Michel Foucault, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, and Sami Schalk.

 

Learning Objectives

This course has three major objectives:

• Acquisition of knowledge of the history of disability and the history of disability studies as a field
• Understanding of past and current theories of disability
• Awareness of and engagement in disability rights activism

 

Assignments

Weekly Reading Responses: These responses can be in the form of a short paper (1-2 pages double-spaced), questions concerning the text, a video or text of a news story which you will bring for discussion.

 

These responses will form the basis of discussion for the second class meeting each week. For this reason, they should be uploaded on Canvas by noon on the Tuesday of each week. Submission of responses starts the second week of the term on September 8^th.

 

Final Project: You will present a long project in the last week of classes. This will be the equivalent of a 10-12 page paper on a topic of your choice related to the course. It can be an analytical paper, a policy paper, a PowerPoint or other slide presentation, a video that you have made.

 

You will meet with me in advance of these presentations, as you decide on the topic you would like to pursue, to discuss research and writing strategies. These meetings will take place during the week before Thanksgiving break.

 

Topics might include but are not limited to:

• gender and disability
• race and disability
• eugenics
• disability and mass incarceration
• the medicalization of disability
• disability and education
• universal design (architecture, landscape, education)
• disability and literature

 

Structure of the Class

Once a week, discussions will focus on the history and theories of disability.

 

Discussions in the subsequent class will be based on reading responses, and students are encouraged to bring in their own materials.

 

The final class meeting of the week will be replaced by office hours. We will schedule one on one or small group meetings.

 

Over the course of the semester, we will also focus on disability activism relative to a range of issues. Students will gain some ownership of the rapidly developing and changing field by finding projects that match their own interests, engaging in advocacy, creative responses, or critical analysis.

 

Grade Breakdown

Reading responses: 30% of your final grade.

 

Final project: 50% of your final grade.

 

Class participation: 20% of your final grade. This includes attendance, timely arrival, engagement with the material, demonstrated by participation in the discussions. There is some flexibility in the modes of participation for students who need accommodations.

 

Accommodations

In the context of this class, if you need any accommodations at any time for any reason, let me know and we will work these accommodations out. Everyone needs accommodations for some reason at some time or another. This is a particularly difficult time, so please understand that if anything happens that affects your participation in this class, you can feel free to reach out and ask for support and flexibility. 

 

Please do not assume, even if you have registered with Disability Services, that I have been informed of the accommodations you need; the same is true if you are working with Cornell Health. Because of confidentiality, professors are given as little information as possible, which means that often we are guessing about how best to help you out. 

 

For more information about support services for students with disabilities, consult the Student Disability Services website. For a range of health services, please consult the Cornell Health website, particularly the section on services. For information on other support services, feel free to talk to me.

 

Semester Overview

All texts will be made available in Library Reserves via Canvas

Consult the Course Grid for reading and assignment due dates

 

Approaches to Disability Studies

WEEK 1

Introduction to the Course; organization of the course.

 

Lennard Davis, “Introduction: Disability, Normality, and Power” in The Disability Studies Reader (Fifth Edition)

 

WEEK 2

The Language of Disability

Simi Linton, “Reassigning Meaning,” in Claiming Disability

 

The Social and Medical Models of Disability

Tom Shakespeare, “The Social Model of Disability,” in The Disability Studies Reader

____________________________

The History of Disability: Disability and Eugenics

 

WEEK 3

Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell, “Introduction,” in Cultural Locations of Disability

 

WEEK 4

Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell, Chapter 2 (“Subnormal Nation”), in Cultural Locations of Disability

 

WEEK 5

Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell, chapter 3 (“The Eugenic Atlantic”), in Cultural Locations of Disability

____________________________

Race and the Institutionalization of Disability

 

WEEK 6

Sami Schalk, “Introduction,” in Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction

 

Subini Ancy Annamma, “Introduction: Prison Nation and the School-Prison Nexus,” in The Pedagogy of Pathologization

 

WEEK 7

Subini Ancy Annamma, “Public Schools and the Criminalization of Difference – Destruction and Creation” in The Pedagogy of Pathologization

 

______,  “Expansive Justice and a Pedagogy of Resistance,” in The Pedagogy of Pathologization

 

WEEK 8

Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell, chapter 4 (“After the Panopticon”), in Cultural Locations of Disability

 

Michel Foucault, “Panopticism,” in Discipline and Punish

____________________________

 (Dis)Ability

 

WEEK 9

H-Dirksen, L. Bauman, and Joseph J. Murray, “Deaf Studies in the 21^st Century: ‘Deaf-Gain’ and the Future of Human Diversity,” in Oxford Handbooks Online

 

____________________________

Concepts of Normality and Abnormality

 

WEEK 10

Shelley Tremain, “Foucault, Governmentality, and Critical Disability Theory,” in Foucault and the Government of Disability

 

Michel Foucault, “Right of Death and Power over Life,” in The History of Sexuality

 

WEEK 11

Paola Marrati and Todd Meyers, “Forward: Life, as Such,” in Knowledge of Life

 

Georges Canguilhem, “Introduction: Thought and the Living,” in Knowledge of Life

 

_____, “A Critical Examination of Certain Concepts: The Normal, Anomaly, and Disease; The Normal and the Experimental,” in The Normal and the Pathological

 

WEEK 12

Individual meetings to plan final projects

 

WEEK 13

Individual meetings [to plan final projects continue] and Thanksgiving break

 

WEEK 14

Georges Canguilhem, “Norm and Average,” in The Normal and the Pathological

 

_____, “Disease, Cure, Health,” in The Normal and the Pathological

____________________________

Disability in a Global Context

 

WEEK 15

Nirmala Erevelles, “Introduction: Bodies that Do Not Matter,” in Disability and Difference in Global Contexts: Enabling a Transformative Body Politic

____________________________

Conclusion

WEEK 16

Final project presentations

 

Final Projects due to me December 18^th

Back To Top