Rackham 580 Fall 07

Disability and Language: Guidelines for writing about disability

Currently, there are two main ways of referring to disability endorsed by different segments of the disability community: social model/civil rights language (‘disabled people’) and people first language (‘people with disabilities’). Both of these usages are widely acceptable to many disabled people/people with disabilities. If in doubt about what kind of language is appropriate, ask.

Further guidelines for writing about disability:
http://www.lsi.ku.edu/lsi/internal/guidelines.html

It is our intention to support the full participation of all students in the learning process of this class. We have incorporated a variety of instruction techniques and evaluation methods in the course process. In spite of these efforts, situations may occur in which the learning style of individual students is not met by the instructional climate. It is our expectation that students who require specific or additional support to acquire the course content or demonstrate their achievement of the objectives will inform us of their needs immediately. For UM-Ann Arbor, please contact the Office of Students with Disabilities, G664 Haven Hall, at 763-3000. For U-M Flint, Ms. Paula Pollander is available in the office of Accessibility Services in 264 UCEN at 762-3456 to provide direct assistance.

Course Description

“Topics in Disability Studies” provides an interdisciplinary approach to disability studies. This term our focus will be on disability aesthetics. How do notions of beauty, regularity, modernity, and difference intersect and interact with the disabled figure in art, literature, and culture? Why are there so many representations of disability in the history of Western (and other) cultural expression? How do disabled people figure in the visions of modern and postmodern social life, and what challenges and opportunities do they present? How do disabled artists and people intervene in the various regimes of aesthetic practice, such as performance art, sculpture, poetry, painting, and architecture? Students will have the opportunity to interact with visiting speakers. The course is offered for 1 or 3 credits. Accessible classroom with realtime captioning. For more information contact Petra Kuppers (petra@umich.edu) or Tobin Siebers (tobin@umich.edu).

Requirements and Grading

Mandatory attendance and participation in class is expected.

Learning Objectives

The course will prepare the student

to understand how disability is culturally represented, historically and currently
to understand how disability is addressed as an aesthetic category in relation to other aesthetic categories

Students should be able to describe the implications of various conceptualizations of disability, including the implications for how perceptions of persons with disabilities

relate to the sex/gender system
affect racial and ethnic stereotyping
require adjustment in theoretical models of identity in the humanities

Students will also be able to describe formal models of disability, such as the medical model, social model, minority model, business model, and others

Course Schedule

Requirements: 1 credit: attendance, a paragraph summary of each class session, and a book review; 3 credits: attendance, participation, class project or paper

The following three questions will be the point of departure for your review discussion. Please write down your responses so you can submit them on the day of class.

We expect each person who is taking the course for 3 credits to write one or two paragraphs describing what you plan to do for the final project, a preliminary bibliography of the material you have reviewed for the project (including material other than what is included in the coursepack), a brief description of the format you plan to use and the department or program you represent. We will ask each of those persons to briefly talk about their project in class. This project description is due on October 19.

Each student who is taking the class for 3 credits is responsible for a 3-5 minute presentation of the results of their project. It is expected that the presentation will demonstrate how you have integrated material from the class (lectures, readings and outside speakers) into your project. Also, all final projects will be submitted on this day.

Required Readings
(Coursepack available at Kolossos, 1214 South University Street, 734-994-0454)

Clare, Eli. 2007. The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion. Homofactus Press. Please order from the press: http://tinyurl.com/2xxp36

Clare, Eli. 1999. “The Mountain.” Exile and Pride: Queerness, Disability, and Liberation. Boston: South End Press. Pp. 1-13.

Davidson, Michael. 2002. “Hearing Things: The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance.” Disability Studies. Enabling the Humanities. Ed. Sharon L. Synder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. New York: Modern Language Association. Pp. 76-88.

Garland Thomson, Rosemarie. 1997. “Disability, Identity, and Representation: An Introduction.” Extraordinary Bodies. New York: University of Columbia Press. Pp. 6-51.

Gilman, Sander. 1998. “The Role of Aesthetics in Creating the Psyche.” Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pp. 39-48.

Hahn, Harlan. 1987. “Advertising the Acceptably Employable Image: Disability and Capitalism.” Policy Studies Journal 15.3: 551-70.

_____. 1986. “Disability and the Urban Environment: A Perspective on Los Angeles.” Environment and Planning 4: 273-88.

Hunter, Daniel G. 1999. “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Disability and the Aesthetics of Landscape Architecture.” Adaptive Environments (May): purl: www.adaptiveenvironments.org/index.php?option=Project&Itemid=208&pid=176

Alison Kafer. 2005. “Hiking Boots and Wheelchairs: Ecofeminism, the Body, and Physical
Disability.” Feminist Interventions in Ethics and Politics. Ed. Barbara Andrew, Jean
Keller, and Lisa H. Schwartzman. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Pp. 131-150.

Kant, Immanuel. 1790. “Ideal of Beauty.” The Critique of Judgement. §17.

Kuppers, Petra. 2003. Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge. London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 70-86.

_____. 2007. “Performing Determinism: Disability Culture Poetry.” Text and Performance Quarterly 27.2: 89-106.

_____. 2007b. “Reaching Out: Outsider Art, Specialists and Positions in Between.” The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Pp. 176-201.

Linton, Simi. 1998. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity. New York: New York University Press. Pp. 8-33.

Pernick, Martin. 1997. “Defining the Defective: Eugenics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture in Early 20th-Century-America.” The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability. Ed. David T. Mitchell and Sharon Snyder. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Pp. 89-110.

Siebers, Tobin. 2003. “What Can Disability Studies Learn from the Culture Wars?” Cultural Critique 55: 182-216.

_____. 2006. “Disability Aesthetics.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 7.2:
63-73. PURL: http://www.jcrt.org/archives/07.2/siebers.pdf