Disability Anthropology

3 units

Disability is everywhere: across cultures, it is present in our enviornments, in our media, and in our personal and familial lives. This discussion-based course recognizes disability not as a biomedical impairment but as an intersectional, constructed category of difference. Disability anthropology, which seeks to understand embodied experiences of disability through ethnography and sociocultural models of disability, is a recently emergent field. Following an introduction to disability activism, theory, and representation, our class will analyze examples of disability anthropology, including autoethnography, ethnographic film, and performance ethnography. As we collectively contribute to an accessible classroom, students will develop a final project that examines a physical space, policy, or other resource at WashU that could be made more accessible. Students will present their projects to the WashU community