Rackham 580 Winter 05

Course Description

"Topics in Disability Studies" provides an interdisciplinary approach to disability studies, including the focus on the arts and humanities, natural and social sciences, and professional schools. Our topic this term will be the dependence of theories of citizenship on ideal versions of the human being. In addition to the history and theory of citizenship, we will focus on its physical and mental requirements. What is the relationship between mental competence and the right to vote? How does physcial ability relate to equal employment opportunities? What are the physcial and mental characteristics of the ideal citizen? Is there an aesthetics of citizenship?

Disability Studies views people with disabilities not as objects but as producers of knowledge whose common history has generated a wide variety of art, music, literature, and science infused with the experience of disability. Students will have the opportunity to interact with visiting speakers from a broad range of fields. The course is offered for 1 or 3 credits. Accessible classroom with realtime captioning. For more information, please contact Tobin Siebers or Margaret Somers.

Learning Objectives

The course will prepare the student

to understand how disability is culturally represented, historically and currently

to understand how disability is addressed in the natural, social, and human sciences

to understand how historical events have informed social and public policy

to understand the historical, political, and social differences between physical and mental disability.

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

relate to standards of mental competence and beauty

participate in citizenship and political activities

view the social and built environment

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 and a paragraph summary of each class session; 3 credits: attendance, participation, class project or paper

Required Readings (Coursepack available at Kolossos, 310 East Washington Street)

Arendt, Hannah. The Perplexities of the Rights of Man. The Portable Hannah Arendt. Ed. Peter Baehr. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Pp. 31-45.

Albrecht, Gary. The Social Meaning of Impairment and Interpretation of Disability. The Disability Business: Rehabilitation in America. Newbury Park, Calif. : Sage Publications, 1992. Pp. 67-90.

Benhabib, Seyla. Transformation of Citizenship. Amsterdam: Kohinklijke Van Gorcum, 2000. Pp. 9-25.

Carey, Allison. Beyond the Medical Model: A Reconsideration of 'Feeblemindedness,' Citizenship, and Eugenic Restrictions. Disability & Society 18.4 (2003): 411-30.

Das, Veena and Renu Addlakha. Disability and Domestic Citizenship: Voice, Gender, and the Making of the Subject. Public Culture 13.3 (2001): 511-32.

Davis, Lennard. Crips Strike Back: The Rise of Disability Studies. ALH 11.3 (1999): 500-12.

Ferris, Jim. The Enjambed Body: A Step Toward a Crippled Poetics. Georgia Review (Summer 2004): purl: http://www.poems.com/essaferr.htm .

Fraser, Nancy and Linda Gordon. A Genealogy of 'Dependency': Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State. In Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus. New York: Routledge, 1997. Pp. 121-149

Fraser, Nancy and Linda Gordon. Contract versus Charity: Why is There No Social Citizenship in the United States? The Citizenship Debates. Ed. Gershon Shafir. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Pp. 113-127

Gallagher, Catherine. The Body Versus the Social Body in the Works of Thomas Malthus and Henry Mayhew. The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laquer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Pp. 83-106.

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

Hahn, Harlan. Disability and the Urban Environment: A Perspective on Los Angeles. Environment and Planning 4 (1986): 273-88.

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

Kudlick, Catherine J. Disability History: Why We Need Another 'Other.' American Historical Review 108.3 (2003): 50 pars. 2 Dec. 2004 <http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.3/kudlick.html>.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. Vulnerability, Dependence, Animality. The Political and Social Structures of the Common Good. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court, 1999. Pp. 1-10; 129-46.

Marshall, T. H. and Tom Bottomore. Citizenship and Social Class. London: Pluto Press, [1949] 1992.

Pernick, Martin. 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, 1997. Pp. 89-110.

Ravaud, Jean-François, and Henri-Jacques Stiker. Inclusion/Exclusion: An Analysis of Historical and Cultural Meanings. Handbook of Disability Studies. Ed. Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman, and Michael Bury. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2001. Pp. 490-512.

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

Turner, Bryan S. Outline of the Theory of Human Rights. Sociology 27.3 (1993): 489-512.

Weisman, Leslie Kanes. Creating the Universally Designed City: Prospects for the New Century. Universal Design Handbook. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001. Pp. 69.1-69.18.