Disability Narratives

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Disability Narratives ( ENGL 445 ) will explore what a “disability narrative” is, has been, and could be. To contextualize this journey, students will consider how the category of disability operates culturally and politically. The course asks about the ways in which gender, race, and sexuality are co-constitutive with disability and political invisibility and/or invalidation. That is to say, the class interrogates how the mark and category of disability appears in intersectional oppression and in relation to the category of citizen and human within cultural discourse, particularly in the context of the United States. Following this broad introduction, the course considers the politics and processes of self-writing, and asks about the politics and ethics of disability disclosure and narratives as they emerge from lives and experiences within the category of disability.