Society for Disability Studies

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Psychosocial, Cultural and Political Aspects of Disability

Prof. Barbara Katz Rothman
646 312 4470
BKatzRothman@gc.cuny.edu

Class meets Tuesdays, 6:30 to 9 PM
NOTE: This is a working syllabus, subject to change after the class has met and introduced themselves, their interests and their concerns.

Assignments:
1. While all students are expected to do the readings for each week, each student will choose two evenings and be particularly prepared, with some comments, thoughts, responses and/or questions for group discussion based on the readings.
2. Each student will join one of four panels with fellow students to work on the group presentation and an individual paper/project. This will be based on a field experience. We will work on this as a class, settling upon appropriate projects.

Required Text:

Lennard J. Davis, The Disability Studies Reader, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2006.
Additional assigned articles will be made available to students.

1. 9/4 Introductions
Prepare a one page intellectual autobiography/relevant work history

Part I: Contexts

2. 9/11 Disability History
Readings:
1. Davis, Constructing Normalcy: The Bell Curve, the Novel, and the Invention of the Disabled Body in the 19th Century, in Davis reader.
2. Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Blindness and Art”, in Davis reader
3. M. Lynn Rose, “Deaf and Dumb in Ancient Greece,” in Davis reader
4. excerpt from Robert Bogdan, FREAK SHOW: PRESENTING HUMAN ODDITIES FOR AMUSEMENT AND PROFIT, University of Chicago Press, 1987
5. excerpt from Stefan Kuhl, THE NAZI CONNECTION: EUGENICS, AMERICAN RACISM AND GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM, Oxford University Press, 1994
6. David J. Rothman and Sheila M. Rothman, excerpts from THE WILLOWBROOK WARS, Harper and Row, 1984

3. 9/18 The Disability (rights) Movement: History and Politics
Readings:
1. Davis, Preface and Introduction, in Davis reader
2. Richard K Scotch, American Disability Policy in the 20th Century
3. Joseph P Shapiro, excerpts from NO PITY: PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES FORGING A NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,1994, Times books
4. Bradley Lewis, “A Mad Fight: Psychiatry and Disability Activism,” in Davis reader
5. James I Charlton, “The Dimensions of Disability Oppression: An Overview,” in Davis reader
6. “Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization,” in Davis reader

(9/25 no class meeting)

4. 10/2 Disability Studies: Vocabulary and Theory
Readings:
1. Erving Goffman, Selections from STIGMA, in Davis reader
2. Lerita M. Coleman, Stigma: An Enigma Demystified,” in Davis reader
3. Simi Linton, “Reassigning Meaning,” in Davis reader
4. Tobin Siebers, “Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to
the New Realism of the Body,” in Davis reader
5. Shelley Tremain, “On the Government of Disability: Foucault, Power
and the Subject of Impairment
6. Tom Shakespeare, “The Social model of Disability,” in Davis reader
7. Chris Bell, “Introducing White Disability Studies: A Modest Proposal,” in
Davis reader
8. Susan Sontag, “AIDS and its Metaphors,” in Davis reader

5. 10/9 Connecting to other Movements and Identities
Readings:
1. Lennard J Davis, “The End of Identity Politics and the Beginning of
Dismodernism: On Disability as an Unstable Category,” in Davis reader
2. Susan Wendell, “Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability: in Davis
reader
3. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming
Feminist Theory” in Davis reader
4. Robert McRuer, Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled
Experience,” in Davis reader
Question: Why is race so deeply missing in this discussion?

Part II: Applying the theories

6. 10/16 Case in Point: Mobility Impairments
Readings:
1. David Serlin, “The Other Arms Race,” in Davis reader
2. Marion Deutsche Cohen, excerpts from DIRTY DETAILS: THE DAYS
AND NIGHTS OF A WELL SPOUSE, 1996 Temple University Press
3. Irving Kenneth Zola, excerpts from MISSING PIECES: A CHRONICLE
OF LIVING WITH A DISABILITY, 1982, Temple University Press

7.10/23 Case in Point: Deafness
Speaker Series: Brenda Brueggeman
Readings:
1. Harlan Lane, “Construction of Deafness,” in Davis reader
2. Padden and Humphries, “Deaf People: A Different Center, in Davis reader
3. H-Dirkssen L Bauman, “Towards a Poetics of Vision, Space and the Body: Sign Language and Literary Theory,” in Davis reader
4. Douglas Baynton, “’A Silent Exile on this Earth’: The Metaphorical Construction of Deafness in the 19th Century,” in Davis reader
5. Brenda Brueggeman, “On (Almost) Passing,” in Davis reader

8/ 10/30 Case in Point: Mental Retardation
Readings:
1. Rachel Simon, excerpts from RIDING THE BUS WITH MY SISTER: A
TRUE LIFE JOURNEY, Penguin, 2004
2. Michael Berube, excerpts from LIFE AS WE KNOW IT: A FATHER, A
FAMILY, AND AN EXCEPTIONAL CHILD, Pantheon books, 1996

Part III: Contemporary Issues

9. 11/6 guest, Jack Levinson, PhD. Author of MAKING LIFE WORK: GOVERNING DISABILITY IN THE COMMUNITY, forthcoming, University of Minnesota Press.
Readings to be distributed: Chapter 1, Locating the Problem; Ch. 8 Counselor
Work; Ch 9, Endless, Uncertain Work.

10. 11/13 guest, Jody Gill, M.S., C.I., ASL Interpreter, Manager of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program of NYU Medical Center.
Review readings “Case in Point: Deafness.”

11. 11/20 A new Eugenics?
Guest, Rachel Grob, PhD. Co-PI with BKR on Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award, “Heel Pricks and Amnios: Discrepencies and Disjunctures in Newborn and Prenatal Screening.”
Readings:
1. James C Wilson, “(Re)writing the Genetic Body-Text: Disabiity,
Textuality and the Human Genome Project,” in Davis reader
2. Marsha Saxton, “Disability Rights and Selective Abortion,” in Davis
Reader
3. Ruth Hubbard, “Abortion and Disability: Who Should and Who Should
Not Inhabit the World?” in Davis reader
4. Barbara Katz Rothman, excerpts from THE TENTATIVE PREGNANCY:
Prenatal Diagnosis and the Future of Motherhood, Viking, 1986; and
from THE BOOK OF LIFE, Beacon, 2000.
5. Rachel Grob, “Parenting in the Genomic Age: The ‘cursed blessing’ of
Newborn Screening.” NEW GENETICS AND SOCIETY, Aug 2006
6. Rachel Grob, “Is My Sick Child Healthy? Is My Healthy Child Sick?:
Changing Parental Experiences in the Age of Expanded Newborn
Screening.” Unpublished article.

(11/27 – no class meeting/speaker series 11/28)
Informal meeting time for student panels; preparing for presentations

12. 12/4 Class Presentations

13. 12/11 Class Presentations