HIST 3307 Blog for Spring 2013

Read:

Optional:  Elizabeth Haiken, “Modern Miracles: The Development of Cosmetic Prosthetics,” in Artificial Parts, Practical Lives, pp. 171-198  (Blackboard)

1) R. A. R. Edwards, “‘Hearing Aids Are Not Deaf’: A Historical Perspective on Technology in the Deaf World,” in The Disability Studies Reader, Third Edition, pp. 403-416 (Blackboard)

2) Leslie Swartz and Brian Watermeyer, “Cyborg anxiety: Oscar Pistorius and the boundaries of what it means to be human,” Disability & Society 23, no. 2 (March 2008): 187-190 (Blackboard)

3) Brenda Brueggemann, “On (Almost) Passing,” in The Disability Studies Reader, Third Edition, pp. 209-219 (Blackboard)

Please answer one of the following questions:

1) What do you see as the common threads between anxieties over prosthetics, passing, and technology?  Your post should draw at least two of the assigned readings.

2) Alternatively, please discuss your “muddiest point” in at least two of the assigned readings.

Read:

1) Peter Singer, “Taking Life: Humans,” excerpted from Practical Ethics, 2^nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 1993), read through “Not Justifying Involuntary Euthanasia” (Blackboard)

2) Paul K. Longmore, Why I Burned My Book: “The Resistance: Disability Rights and Assisted Suicide,” pp. 175-204

3) Martha Saxton, “Disability Rights and Selective Abortion,” in The Disability Studies Reader, Third Edition, pp. 120-132 (Blackboard)

Answer one of the following questions:

1) Imagine that you have been asked to advise your state legislator on two bills up for debate:  one proposal that would ban the abortion of disabled fetuses (just passed in North Dakota)  and one proposal that would permit physician-assisted suicide (allowed in Oregon, Washington, and a number of European nations and under consideration in a number of states).   Drawing on all three articles, how would you encourage them to vote?  Why?

2) Identify and discuss your muddiest point(s) in at least two of the readings.

Read:

1) Longmore, Why I Burned My Book, ch. 11: “The Second Phase:  From Disability Rights to Disability Culture,” 215-224

2) Joseph N. Straus, “Autism as Culture” in The Disability Studies Reader, Third Edition, ed. Lennard Davis (Routledge, 2010), pp. 535-559 (Blackboard)

3) Cheryl Marie Wade, “I Am Not One of the” and “Cripple Lullaby” in The Disability Studies Reader, Third Edition, pp. 592-593 (Blackboard)

Choose one of the following questions to answer:

1) What do you think of the concept of “disability culture(s)” discussed by Longmore?  Discuss, drawing on the two examples provided (i.e., Straus’s article and Wade’s poems), as well as any other examples that you would like to incorporate.

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in at least two articles.

Read:

1) Longmore, Why I Burned My Book, ch. 13:  “Why I Burned My Book,” pp. 230-261

2) Pelka, What We Have Done, ch. 24-25, 35, pp. 397-419, 429-433, 439-451, 548-555

Answer one of the following questions:

1) Drawing on Longmore’s essay and the chapters in Pelka, what do you think has been the most important impact of the ADA?  What is the most important problem not addressed by the ADA?

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in both (or across) Longmore and Pelka.

Read:

Pelka, part of ch. 13 and ch. 14, 20-21, pp. 246-253, 261-282, 355-396

Please answer one of the following questions:

1) Pelka discusses a variety of disability rights campaigns in these chapters. Select two examples that you think represent most important practical change(s) or changes in the conception of disability and explain why.

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in two different examples from Pelka.

Read:

Pelka, What We Have Done, part of ch. 8 and ch. 10-11, pp. 151-156, 183-226

Please choose one of the following questions:

1) Select at least two different examples from Pelka and discuss:  what do you think was the most important way in which these independent living and disability rights activists began to redefine standard views of disability and people with disabilities?  In other words, what aspects of their advocacy strategies, independent living programs, or disability organizations did you find most striking, intriguing, or effective?

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in at least two different examples from Pelka.

These readings focus on the experiences of people in institutions, primarily those forcibly placed there, as well as the deinstitutionalization movement that sought to integrate people with disabilities into mainstream life.

Read:

1) Pelka, What We Have Done, ch. 2, 4, part of 15, 17-18, pp. 48-60, 77-93, 283-302, 312-338

Answer one of the following questions:

1) Drawing on the chapters assigned in Pelka, what do you see as the most important aspect of the institutionalization experience?

2) Drawing on the chapters in Pelka, what you think was the most important or effective challenge to the practice of institutionalizing people with disabilities?

3) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s).”

Read:

1) Pelka, What We Have Done, ch. 1, 3, pp. 30-47, 61-76

2) Mary Tremblay, “Going Back to Civvy Street: A Historical Account of the Impact of the Everest and Jennings Wheelchair for Canadian World War II Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury,” Disability & Society 11, no. 2 (1996): 149-169 (Blackboard)

3) Sarah F. Rose, “The Right to a College Education? The GI Bill, Public Law 16, and Disabled Veterans,” Journal of Policy History 24, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 26-52 (Blackboard)

Answer one of the following questions:

These three readings focus on a time when many different people with disabilities fought for equal rights and began to have much more success in doing so. These readings offer many different examples.  In your answers, please try to focus on different cases and themes where possible—or build off a case or theme brought up by someone else—but don’t contort your post or ideas to do so.

1) What do you think was the most difficult challenge or barrier that people with disabilities faced in claiming equal rights and what was their most effective strategy?  Why? Your answer should draw on at least two readings.

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in at least two articles.

Read:

1) Nielsen, The New Disability History, pp. 131-156 (all of ch. 7, for e-book users)

2) In The New Disability History: Susan Burch, “Reading between the Signs: Defending Deaf Culture in Early Twentieth-Century America,” pp. 214-235

3) Susan Schwartzenberg, Becoming Citizens: Family Life and the Politics of Disability (University of Washington Press, 2005), pp. 5-9, 18-27, 35-41, 63-65 (Blackboard)

Please answer one of the following questions:

1) With few exceptions, historically people with disabilities and their families have not seen themselves as a community or as having much in common.  Drawing on at least two of the readings for today, identify and discuss one reason you think this dynamic began to change in the mid-twentieth century.

2) Alternatively, you can summarize in several sentences (or possibly a short paragraph each) your “muddiest point(s)” in at least two pieces or across the readings.

Paper on Freaks due at 11 am today.  We will discuss FDR and disability and also watch excerpts from Warm Springs in class.