Syllabus in Word format (fixed)

Large-print syllabus in Word format

This is a survey of Disability Studies, an interdisciplinary field informed by the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Disability Studies investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society's understandings of disability. This course will introduce you to a critical framework for recognizing entrenched attitudes, barriers, and representations that tend to have stigmatizing and discriminatory effects on people identified as disabled.
    The experience of disability is usually viewed as a condition of personal deficit, misfortune, and shame. In this course we will question these negative perceptions, as well as the practices and discourses through which they are generated and reinforced. We will study the work of scholars and activists who have reinterpreted disability as a form of human variation. The disability community identifies itself as an oppressed minority group seeking equal civil rights and full participation. The social model perspective, which has been developed within the disability rights movement and Disability Studies, analyzes how concepts such as "disabled" and "normal" are determined by social, political, economic, architectural, cultural, and historical factors. We will explore disability legislation and public policy; perspectives on the roles of medicine and technology; the history of disability including eugenics and institutionalization; intersections with studies of race, gender, and the body; and ethical and political arguments about quality of life, inclusion, and independence. We will critique stereotypical depictions of disability especially in the media, and learn about disabled artists' work to create alternative representations. Disability Studies is an academic field that problematizes society's reactions to disability and promotes social change.

15% Participation
15% Homework (5 written responses)
30% 3 short essays (Apr 11, Apr 25, May 25)
15% Architectural survey (May 2 & 9)
25% Artifacts project (June 1 & 7)

The textbook is available at the UW Bookstore: Joseph P. Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Random House, 1993). The rest of the required readings are found in a course packet, to be purchased at Rams Copy Center (4144 University Way). Readings and extra materials will also be posted on the course website.

Students with disabilities need not disclose. The instructors can work in conjunction with Disability Resources for Students (448 Schmitz, 543-8924) to provide accommodations of any sort due to disability. Please feel free to talk with us about any aspect of accommodation.

On completion of this course you will, through written, verbal, sign, and/or other forms of communication, be able to demonstrate your understanding of
•    The basic concepts used in the Disability Studies approach: impairment and disability; ableism; the social model that contextualizes disability; and the moral, medical, and personal tragedy models that define disability as an individual problem.
•    The political, social, and economic forces that have shaped Western society's dominant understandings of "disability" and "normality"; and how these views and practices are critiqued by disability scholars and activists.
•    The disability rights movement, public policy, legislation, and disability culture in the United States; debates surrounding issues of rights and identity; and the role played by Disability Studies in advancing an agenda for diversity and social justice.
•    Perspectives on how to incorporate analyses of lived experiences, impairments, and narratives into the social construction model.
•    The intersections of disability, gender, sexuality, race, and class.
•    The disability community's positions on such contested issues as pre-natal genetic testing, assisted suicide, institutionalization, independent living, attendant care, assistive technologies, cochlear implants, Deaf-deaf, Americans with Disabilities Act enforcement and court rulings, charity telethons, and media stereotypes of disability.