ENGCMP 0540 - INTRODUCTION TO DISABILITY STUDIES

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
This course provides students with a foundation for using writing to understand, apply, and critically engage with key concepts and histories that have been crucial to the experiences of people with disabilities, and perceptions and treatment of those with disabilities. Students can expect to explore and write theoretical pieces, first-person accounts, and representations of people with disabilities. They will learn various models of understanding and discussing disability (including the social, medical, individual model, and identity models) and the histories that have shaped the lives, experiences, and perceptions of people with disabilities. Students in the course will have the opportunity to compose rhetorical analyses of popular, public, and professional representations of disability. Historically, disability has been viewed as a deficiency or defect through the lens of religious and, most prominently, medical discourses, locating disability within an individual’s body and mind. Seeing disability as a problem to be solved has resulted in significant barriers to access and representation for people with disabilities within all areas of the public sphere. Students will develop their own written critical inquiries into concepts such as normalcy, disability, and barriers to access (including physical, social, attitudinal, legal barriers). This course will not only offer critical interrogations of disability as a construct, but also center the lives and experiences of those with disabilities, viewing disability as a locus of identity and culture. To that end, students will watch documentaries and television media, and read memoir, personal essays, and poetry that present the pride, struggles, and everyday experiences of people with disabilities. Students will also study the Disability Rights Movement and inquiries into identity politics as related to disability as an identity category. The course will invite students to use composition to increase accessibility for those with disabilities and to consider the potentials and limitations of universal design.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Seminar
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Requirements: PREQ: ENG 0102 or ENGCMP (0002 or 0006 or 0020 or 0200 or 0203 or 0205 or 0207 or 0208 or 0210 or 0212 or 0213 or 0214) or ENGFLM 0210 or FP (0003 or 0006) or (ENGR 0012 or 0712 or 0715 or 0716 or 0718)
Course Attributes: DSAS Diversity General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Seminar in Comp. General Ed. Requirement, MCSI - Sustainability Focused, MCSI - Sustainability Related, Writing Intensive Course (WRIT)

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