ENGL 375 - Seminar in Women’s Studies

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2021/22b: Feminist Disability Studies. (Same as WMST 375) Why is disability a feminist issue? This course addresses that question by exploring the diverse meanings of disability, both in theory and in lived experience, focusing on intersections of disability with gender, race, class, and sexuality. Disability is defined broadly to include all the ways in which a person’s body or mind may be perceived as outside what Audre Lorde called “the mythical norm.” We examine the ways in which particular historical, social, and institutional structures have shaped the experiences of disabled people, and how cultural perceptions of disability create social inequality. In the spirit of the disability rights movement’s call for “nothing about us without us,” we also give special attention to the work of disabled writers, artists, performers, and activists.Topics may include gender, sexuality, and eugenics; engendering the disabled body; disability, biotechnology, and reproductive justice; the gendering of “madness;” invisible disabilities; disability and trauma; disability and incarceration; disability, dependency, and the feminist ethics of care; disability rights and disability justice. Students deepen their personal engagement with feminist disability studies through research, self-reflection, and a final critical or creative project. Leslie Dunn, Silke von der Emde.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS