Topics in Disability History� DIS ST / HSTCMP 402 / 502

January 7, 2025

This class will be recorded today

Chat is displayed on screen in SAV so don’t private chat to Joanne ☺

Agenda

• Course overview
• Course description & critical frameworks
• Access & assignments
• Break

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• Watching today: Part 1 of Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)

Welcome!

Joanne Woiak (she/her), associate teaching professor in the Disability Studies Program

• Academic background (history of science & medicine, disability studies)
• Relationships to disability

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• UW Disability Studies https://disabilitystudies.washington.edu/
• Minor
• Major
• Graduate Certificate

Course overview:�Disability History�

• Early 2000s “new disability history”:
• “Disability History: Why We Need Another ‘Other’” (Kudlick 2003): Building on feminist history, critical race theory, etc. to “reshape our scholarly landscape” to include disability.
• “It is time to bring disability from the margins to the center of historical inquiry” (Baynton 2001): Disabled people’s history & history of the concept of disability and how it was used.
• Introduced intersectional approaches: “disability as identity & cultural signifier” overlapping with gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality.

Disability History of the United States, focus on race & disability

• Since 2020, increasing critiques of what scholar Christopher Bell labeled “white disability studies”:
• Questions and expands the methodologies, critical frameworks, audiences & purposes of historical research.
• New attention to what & who are the subjects of disability history and considers histories of violence and of resistance:
• Sami Schalk, Black Disability Politics
• Susan Burch, Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions
• Adria Imada, An Archive of Skin, An Archive of Kin: Disability and Life-Making during Medical Incarceration

Privacy and the Past: Critical frameworks for doing disability history

• Penny Richards & Susan Burch, “Documents, Ethics, and the Disability Historian”
• “Ways to proceed with sensitivity and creativity in the exploration of disabled peoples’ and disability’s pasts.”

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• Susan Lawrence, Privacy and the Past: Research, Law, Archives, Ethics

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• Disability Archival Methodology
• Community Archives

Critical frameworks for this course

• Disability Studies (DS)
• “What is disability?” Critical perspective on mainstream definitions and stereotypes.

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• DS scholarship and teaching enhance the understanding of disability by incorporating social, cultural, historical, legal, and political perspectives, including the connections between disability and other identities. DS centers the experiences of disabled people.

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• DS defined as a methodology, rather than by its objects of study: “Involves scrutinizing not bodily or mental impairments but the social norms that define particular attributes as impairments, as well as the social conditions that concentrate stigmatized attributes in particular populations” (Julie Avril Minich).

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Learning goals & themes

• Understand the history of disability and activism in the United States in connection with other social categories and movements and critical theories.
• Learn or enrich your theoretical background in the field of disability studies (DS) and apply to diverse texts.
• Investigate how normalcy is constituted through gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability.
• Consider how historians grapple with ethics, accountability, and accessibility in their research, writing, and publishing.

Disability Justice values inspire our teaching and learning methods in the course

• “In 2005, disabled queers and activists of color began discussing a ‘second wave’ of disability rights…. Disability justice activists, organizers, and cultural workers understand that able-bodied supremacy has been formed in relation to other systems of domination and exploitation. The histories of white supremacy and ableism are inextricably entwined, created in the context of colonial conquest and capitalist domination” (the group Sins Invalid)

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• Intersectionality – leadership of those most impacted - multiply marginalized disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent

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• Interdependence – mutual aid, vulnerability

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• Collective access – “access is love” (Mia Mingus) - “We move together

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Frameworks: teaching & learning together

• Welcoming discomfort
• Taught from an anti-oppressive point of view, to learn about the concepts and significance of DS and center a little-heard perspective.
• Respectful engagement and disagreement – listen, understand, reply.
• Be prepared to listen and to critically examine your own beliefs in relation to those of others and to the material.
• Accessibility of materials & discussions: content warnings, listening to each other for access needs. Access is a process and engaged in collectively.
• Extend grace to one another since the DS perspective & learning about ableism is new, but also acknowledge and address harm.

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• Meanings of disability, gender, sexuality, race for members of our community
• Be thoughtful of the impacts of your words
• Appreciate the labor of those who help us by correcting us
• Offer & pause for content warnings.

Access & accommodations in this course

• The instructor is trying to create an inclusive learning environment.
• If you anticipate or experience barriers based on disability, you are welcome to meet with me so that we can work together to develop strategies for success, including with DRS.
• You do not need to disclose a disability to discuss making this course accessible.
• It’s OK to ask for help, anytime, any reason. Extensions, modified assignments, a space to be heard and valued.
• Please do not wear strong fragranced products to class.
• Let’s make a community agreement to wear masks.

Structure of the class

• Class meetings
• Class meetings are hybrid SAV 132 & on Zoom.
• Students may attend in either modality, including when you are a facilitator.
• Some days will be Zoom only, TBD.
• All classes will be recorded.

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• Strategies for learning and access needs
• Survey of your concerns and needs – incl. potentially triggering content.
• Asynchronous participation is available – I want to support you in engaging with the course in a variety of ways. Let me know.

Course materials

• Canvas – updates in Modules
• Communicate via Inbox or email
• Readings
• All readings will be on Canvas as pdfs & links
• Other content
• Lectures & whole-group discussions in class will be recorded & slides posted before
• Films with captions always & audio description if possible; podcasts and webinars with transcripts

Assignments

• 30% Reading Responses – write 4 papers. Read each assignment prior to writing to see the requirements and allowed readings.

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• 30% Final Essay or Project
• 10% Preliminary writing and peer workshops
• 20% Completed essay (5-6 pages) or project
• Projects in non-essay formats are welcomed – consult with me in advance

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• Additional requirements for grad students enrolled in 502 – I will email you asap

Participation (15%)

• Class Activities will usually be discussion questions/prompts about the readings
• Most but not all of them will be graded.
• Each student may participate in either of these modes:

A) Synchronous participation is preferred in this course, since much of our learning will be discussion-based and students will often be responsible for facilitating. Will consist of breakout group and/or full group, sometimes with in-class group writing.

B) Asynchronous participation is available as needed; students do not need to request permission to occasionally participate asynchronously. If you anticipate you will need to do asynch more than about 5 days, please let me know. I want to work with you to ensure everyone has opportunity to engage with each other’s ideas. Will generally consist of written answers to discussion questions & replies to peers, on Class Activity boards.

Facilitating discussion small group (15%)

• Fill out the assignment (survey) for your choice of day
• Plan to be synchronous in class on your day (let me & your group know if you need to be asynch)
• Elements:
• Reading notes
• Annotations on the readings
• Engagement (helping to lead discussion)
• Historical methods & key themes
• Presentation
• Discussion questions

Interdependence assignments (10%)

• Activities grounded in the Disability Justice principle: “we meet each other’s needs as we move towards liberation” (Sins Invalid), supporting the groups who are facilitating and the whole class.

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• (5% ) Act as official class “note taker” for one week (both class meetings) – there is a sign-up google sheet.

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• (5%) Annotate the readings on 2 days where you are NOT facilitating. This is due before class starts (late work not accepted for this).

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Questions to think about during the documentary��Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Netflix, 2020)��Content includes: institutionalization

• Class Activity for Jan 7 (everyone write your answers on the discussion board, due Jan 14):
• What are your initial reactions to the film, especially how you think it might relate to topics or themes or critical approaches we'll explore in this course. What jumped out to you as most interesting or surprising about the views and experiences that the campers' expressed?
• What did you notice about the type of source material that the filmmakers had access to in telling this history of Camp Jened? What did you think about some of the choices that the filmmakers made in using certain historical footage and contemporary interviews?

Up Next

• Please reply to the survey or speak with me on email or office hours.
• Please complete the “volunteer note-taking” sign up (Independence assignment).
• Watch for a sign-up form to select your day for “Facilitating Discussion.”

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• Class Thurs 1/9, hybrid, read the assigned readings (short) & watch the pre-recorded lecture about Disability Studies.

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• Class Activity for today 1 /7 - everyone write in the discussion board, due next week.:
• Introducing yourself & commenting on the syllabus and answering questions about film.

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• Preview our Community guidelines for consideration.

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• Thank you! I look forward to meeting each of you & learning together this quarter.

Community agreements (reflect & discuss)

• Come to class prepared to discuss the readings and engage in ways meaningful to you.
• Self-care and engagement: move around, stim, snack, knit, camera off/leave.
• Care webs: Wear masks for everyone’s safety, don’t wear strong fragrances.
• Say your name before speaking in whole group.
• Your perspective is valuable. If someone is speaking, feel free to raise hand or use chat.
• Please direct my attention to something I missed – usually by voice is best.
• Respectful engagement and disagreement – listen to understand, as well as replying and sharing thoughts.
• Extend grace to one another since DS & learning about ableism may be new.
• And acknowledge and address harm
• Be accountable for our actions and words and recognize the labor others do to help us do better.
• Recognize we have different positionalities & experiences around this content – pause to offer content warnings.
• Joanne will regularly drop into breakout groups to ask “how are things going?”
• What works for you? What else would you like to add/revise?