Winter 2008
Rackham 580: Topics in Disability Studies: Disability and Culture
| Meeting Times/Office hours | Learning Objectives |
| Cross-listings | Course Schedule |
| Guidelines for writing about disability | Required Readings |
| ADA Statement | Guest Visitors |
| Course Description |
Instructors: Tobin Siebers and Kristine A. Mulhorn
Class: Friday, 11:00 -1:00 pm Room: G463 Mason
Office: T. Siebers: 2015 Tisch
K. A. Mulhorn: 2102 WSW(UM-Flint)
Hours: By appointment Friday 1-2:30 and by appointment
Phone: T. Siebers: 734-763-2351
K.A. Mulhorn: 810-762-3172
Email: tobin@umich.edu
kmulhorn@umich.edu
Cross-listings:
UM-Ann Arbor
Architecture 609 PM & R 580
Education 580 Social Work 572
English 528 Sociology 580
Kinesiology 503 Women’s Studies 590
UM-Flint
Health Care 576 Public Administration 576
Guidelines for writing about disability:
http://www.lsi.ku.edu/lsi/internal/guidelines.html
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.
This course provides an interdisciplinary approach to disability studies, including focus on the arts and humanities, natural and social sciences, and professional schools. Some topics include the history and cultural representation of disability, advocacy, health, rehabilitation, built environment, independent living, public policy. The point of departure of the course is the idea that disability provides a critical framework that reorients the basic assumptions of various fields of knowledge, from political science to architecture, from engineering to art history, from genetics to law, from public policy to education, from biology to poetry, and so on. 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 Kristine Mulhorn and Tobin Siebers.
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 public policy
Students should be able to describe the implications of various conceptualizations of disability, including the implications for how persons with disabilities
• experience employment and medical care
• participate in social and political activities
• view the built environment and transportation issues
Students will also be able to describe formal models of disability, such as the medical model, the sociological model (or minority model), business model, and others
Weisman. Project Descriptions Due
Kleege; Mairs; O’Brien
Readings: Allen et al., 2005, 2006
Spring Break, Feb. 23 to Mar. 3
February 1: Short Description of Project and Bibliography
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.
February 15 : Midterm Review (Required for all students)
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.
- Describe three points you have learned so far.
- List three questions about disability or disability studies that have not yet been answered.
- Offer three recommendations for the class format, structure or physical environment.
April 11 : Presentations of Class Projects and Submissions of Projects
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 (Available on Ctools)
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.
Allen, Barbara, and Nancy Meyers, John Sullivan, and Melissa Sullivan. “Assessing the End-of-life-care Educational Needs of Elderly Deaf Persons: Lessons on Language and Culture for Researchers and Health Practitioners.” Focus on Nonverbal Communications Research. Nova Science Publishers, 2005. 1-23.
_____. “Using American Sign Language in Assessing the End-of-life-Care Educational Needs of Deaf Persons: Lessons on Language, Culture, and Research Practices.” Best Practices for Surveying People with Disabilities. Nova Science Publishers, 2006. 1-23.
Charmaz, Kathy, and Dana Rosenfeld. “Reflections of the Body, Images of Self: Visibility and Invisibility in Chronic Illness and Disability.” Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body. Ed. Dennis Waskul and Phillip Vannini. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006. 34-49.
Davis, Cheryl. "Disability and the Experience of Architecture." Rethinking Architecture: Design Students and Physically Disabled People. Ed. Raymond Lifchez. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, pp. 19-33.
Evans, J.E. “Why the Medical Model Needs Disability Studies (and vice versa): A Perspective from Rehabilitation Psychology,” Disability Studies Quarterly 24.4 (2004) : 93-98.
Ferris, Jim. The Hospital Poems. Charlotte, NC: Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2004. Excerpts.
Field, Marilyn, and Alan Jette. “The Environmental Context of Disability: The Case of Health Care Facilities.” The Future of Disability in America. Ed. Marilyn Field and Alan Jette. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2007. 162-82.
Kleege, Georgina. “Call It Blindness.” Sight Unseen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. 9-42.
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
Imrie, Rob. “Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment.” The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives. Ed. Tom Shakespeare. London and New York: Cassell, 1998. Pp. 129-46.
Johnson, Harriet McBryde. “The Disability Gulag.” New York Times Magazine, 23 November 2003. Pp. 58-64.
Linton, Simi. 1998. “Reassigning Meaning.” Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity.” New York University Press. Pp. 8-33.
Mairs, Nancy. “Sex and the Gimpy Girl.” River Teeth 1.1 (1999): 44-51.
Mulhorn, Kristine. “Addressing Recommendations for Increasing the Rate of Response by Persons with Disabilities: A Comparison across Six National Surveys.” Towards Best Practices for Surveying People. Ed. Thilo Kroll, David Keer, et al. Nova Science Publishers 2007. 1-11.
O’Brien, Mark. “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate.” The Sun, 174 (May 1990).
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.
Rimmer, James. H. “The Conspicuous Absence of People with Disabilities in Public Fitness and Recreation Facilities: Lack of Interest or Lack of Access?” Am J Health Promot 19.5 (2005): 327-29.
_____. “Inclusive Fitness Means More than Accessible Bathrooms and Entranceways.” Journal on Active Aging (July/August 2007): 94.
Rimmer, James. H., and Barth Riley, Edward Wang, and Amy Rauworth. “Accessibility of Health Clubs for People with Mobility Disabilities and Visual Impairments.” American Journal of Public Health 95.11 (2005): 2022-28.
Rimmer, James. H., and Barth Riley, Edward Wang, Amy Rauworth, and Janine Jurkowki. “Physical Activity Participation Among Persons with Disabilities.” Am J Prev Med 26.5 (2004): 419-25.
Seelman, K. “Trends in Rehabilitation and Disability: Transition from a Medical Model to an Integrative Model (Part 1).” Disability World 22 (2004): January-March.
Snyder, Sharon, and David T. Mitchell. “Out of the Ashes of Eugenics: Diagnostic Regimes in the United States and the Making of a Disability Minority.” Patterns of Prejudice 36.1 (2002): 79-103.
Story, Molly Follete, James L. Mueller, and Ronald L. Mace. “Understanding the Spectrum of Human Abilities.” The Universal Design File: Designing for People of All Ages and Abilities. North Carolina: Center for Universal Design, 1998. Pp. 15-30.
Waskul, Dennis, and Phillip Vannini. “Introduction: The Body in Symbolic Interaction.” Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body. Ed. Dennis Waskul and Phillip Vannini. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006. 1-18.
Wendell, Susan. “The Social Construction of Disability.” The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York: Routledge, 1996. Pp. 35-56.
WHO. Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health: ICF. Geneva, Switzerland: World Heath Organization, 2002. Pp.1-19.
Visit Date: February 22, 2008
Barbara Allen completed her Ph.D. at Indiana University. She teaches courses in American politics, feminist political theory, politics and the media, and constitutional law. Her broad interests include research related to liberal philosophy, democratic theory, institutional analysis and design, rational choice, and policy and law related to gender and race. Her areas of specialization related to empirical theory and methodology include quantitative methods, political socialization and behavior, public opinion, and theories of learning. Professor Allen writes extensively on applying Tocqueville's theories to contemporary politics and policy. Other publications include her research on Martin Luther King's contributions to American political thought. She is a contributing editor to The Martin Luther King Papers Project at Stanford University and a fellow at the Mondale Policy Forum at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Allen also is a recipient of several grants including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Earhart Foundation fellowships.
Visit Date: March 14th, 2008
Peg Ball has worked as a disability rights advocate for over 25 years, including work at Centers for Independent Living in Kalamazoo, Lansing, Tucson Arizona, and currently in Ann Arbor. Peg is a Board member and Co-Chair of Partners in Personal Assistance, a nonprofit organization managed by people with disabilities and people who provide personal assistance services. She is currently the Board Secretary for the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, a group developing a statewide registry of Personal Assistants. She also serves on the Board of The Leaven Center, a retreat and study center that nurtures the relationship between spirituality and social justice.
www.aretecoach.com
Visit Date: March 28th, 2008
James H. Rimmer, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development, College of Applied Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For the past 25 years, Dr. Rimmer has been developing and directing health promotion programs for people with disabilities. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on various topics in health promotion, physical activity and disability. He is director of two federally funded centers, the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability (www.ncpad.org) and the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Recreational Technology and Exercise Physiology (www.rercrectech.org). He is a federal grant reviewer for the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research; a member of the Healthy People 2010 federal panel examining the health of the nation; and a member of the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board for Life Fitness Academy.
