A Guide to Embedding Disability Studies into the Humanities
Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to A Guide to Embedding Disability Studies into the Humanities. This Guide is one outcome of 3 years of Disability Studies faculty working with Humanities faculty at Temple University to enrich and broaden the curriculum and instruction of Mosaic, a 2- semester humanities course required of all undergraduate and transfer students. Because disability will be treated as an important aspect of human diversity in this course, an expected outcome is that students with disabilities will find the academy as not only an accessible place to study but also a welcoming place to study, thus improving their retention rates at their colleges and universities. This Guide has been funded through a demonstration project grant from the US Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education, PR/Award #: P333A080018. You can learn more about the overall program Ensuring Higher Education Opportunity for ALL by visiting our website
The purpose of this guidebook is two-fold. The first purpose is to share with academic colleagues in the United States and abroad successful attempts at embedding Disability Studies content into the humanities. At Temple University, we collaborated with faculty members teaching a two-semester, “world civilizations” course called “Mosaic: The Humanities Seminars,” required of all freshmen and transfer students. Members of our Interdisciplinary Faculty Committee, all of whom have expertise in Disability Studies and most of whom self-identify as a person with a disability or chronic illness, prepared and delivered lectures on such topics as race and disability, medical testing on disabled populations, images of disability in the Holy Bible, disability and education, and female sexuality and disability. In all cases, IFC members collaborated with their Mosaic faculty partners, ensuring that the lectures they delivered would be relevant and useful in the context of what had already been discussed in the Mosaic classroom. You can view a short video introducing you to some of the faculty by clicking on
The second purpose of this guidebook is to offer a heuristic for incorporating Disability Studies concepts and content into a variety of academic disciplines within the humanities. By bringing the voices of the disability community into discipline-based content areas, faculty can expand the scope of their current offerings while simultaneously supporting students with disabilities at the post-secondary level by allowing them to see themselves and their experiences reflected in the undergraduate curriculum. Speaking of the impact of the project on his students, Mosaic instructor Jamal Benin reports, “I feel that this is really necessary. It’s fun, the students welcome it, and they learn so much because they don’t know anything about it.” Additionally, since the experience of disability has social, historical, literary and religious contexts, it is our aim to help you to draw out the parallels between non-disabled lives and their disabled counterparts as you ask students to explore particular academic disciplines.
What is Disability Studies?
Like women’s studies and African American studies, Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study which is focused on the contributions, experiences, history, and culture of people with disabilities. The field of teaching and research in the area of Disability Studies is growing worldwide. The Society for Disability Studies, an international organization founded in 1982 to promote discussion and dissemination of disability studies, publishes the Disability Studies Quarterly, the leading journal devoted to the field of Disability Studies. The Modern Language Association started a Disability Studies Discussion Group in 1993 by member petition, and expanded to Division status in 2006.
According to The Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies at Syracuse University, Disability Studies refers generally to the examination of disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. In contrast to clinical, medical, or therapeutic perspectives on disability, Disability Studies focuses on how disability is defined and represented in society. It rejects the perception of disability as a functional impairment that limits a person’s activities. From this perspective, disability is not a characteristic that exists in the person or a problem of the person that must be “fixed” or “cured.” Instead, disability is a construct that finds its meaning within a social and cultural context.
For a further examination of the rationale and need for Disability Studies, see Diane N. Bryen and Sieglinde A. Shapiro, "Disability Studies: What it is and Why it is Needed," an article from the Temple University Faculty Herald 25(4), February 12, 1996.
Literary studies scholar Joshua Lukin discusses work examining the complex interactions between representations of disability and race in historical and contemporary American society - "Black Disability Studies," Temple University Faculty Herald 36(4), February 14, 2006.
Some Important Facts to Set the Context
Between 600 and 650 million people with disabilities worldwide
54 million Americans with Disabilities
Disability does not equate to disease or illness
The voices of people with disabilities have been largely absent in the education of students in the humanities
Like other marginalized groups, people with Disabilities have been …
Devalued and marginalized
Discriminated against and segregated
Sterilized, subjected to euthanasia, and exterminated
Poorly educated with high rates of school drop out
Disability is both a cause and consequence of income poverty
Denied access to quality healthcare and education
Intersect with other minority groups, such as race, gender, and other cultural groups
YET, like other minority groups, the disability communities have a long and rich history unknown to many
Disability as Diversity
Like people of color, women, and other cultural groups …
Disability Studies, a relatively new academic area of study, needs to be embedded into university humanity’s curriculum
Disability Studies content needs to be embedded into:
History
Literature and Writing
Film and other Media
Religion
Political science and economics
Sociology
Anthropology
Architecture
Engineering
Computer Science,
City Planning, and much more…
We hope this Guide is a useful resource to you and your colleagues as you embed disability studies content into the humanities.
Diane Nelson Bryen, PhD - Professor Emerita & Project Director
Ann Keefer, PhD - Project Coordinator
Ensuring Higher Education Opportunity for ALL
Temple University
May 2011
Not for distribution without the permission of the Editors.
A Guide to Embedding Disability Studies Content into the Humanities
Table of Contents
Introductioni
Part 1: Mosaic at Temple University8
Lesson 1: Disability in the Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament: The Story of Samson8
Lesson 2: Uninformed Consent:
Medical Testing on Vulnerable Populations12
Lesson 3: The Disability Movement and
The Souls Of Black Folk15
Lesson 4: Freud, Disability and Sexuality17
Lesson 5: Freud and Disability20
Lesson 6: On the Streets and in the School Yards:
Jane Jacobs’ The Death & Life of Great
American Cities22
Part 2: The Humanities 26
Lesson 7: Disability and American History26
Lesson 8: Disability and Education29
Lesson 9: Disability and the Media35
Lesson 10: Disability and Writing39
Part 3: Resources 42
PowerPoint for Lesson 143
PowerPoint for Lesson 252
PowerPoint for Lesson 356
PowerPoint for Lesson 462
PowerPoint for Lesson 567
PowerPoint for Lesson 677
Disability Studies Texts81
Part 4: About the Authors83
Diane Nelson Bryen
Beverly Frantz
Ann Keefer
Joshua Lukin
Carol Marfisi
Jeremy Schipper
Part 1: Mosaic at Temple University
Lesson 1
“Disability in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The Story of Samson”
Jeremy Schipper, PhD, Department of Religion, Temple University
HUMANITIES/BIBLICAL LITERATURE
Numbers 6; Judges 13-16
CONTENT AREAS ADDRESSED
Biblical and Other Ancient Near Eastern Literature
Rationale for the Lesson
From antiquity to the present, disability imagery often appears in literature, art, and film to express and embody a variety of literary themes, including personal or collective tragedy, moral and poetic justice, alienation, heroism, and so on. Yet, disability imagery is rarely used to describe or narrate the actual experiences of people with disabilities. This lesson explores this phenomenon, using the story of Samson in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as important example that highlights the distance between the literary representations of disability and the lived experiences of disability.
Goals/Aims
The disability imagery in the story of Samson serves as a literary device to structure the beginning and end of the story and develop the theme of Samson’s alienation and separation in the story and its tragic consequences
The disability imagery does not tell us much about how people with disabilities actually lived their everyday lives in the ancient world
Disability in the Samson story is a literary device. It should not be confused for a medical or legal or any other type of depiction of disability in the ancient world
We should not assume the literary themes of alienation and separation automatically reflect the real everyday lives of people with disabilities in the ancient or contemporary world
We should not assume that people with disabilities live tragic lives just because disability is often used to develop tragic themes in literature
Background information
Judges 13-16 contains the only biblical account of the life of Samson. Beginning with his miraculous birth to his previously infertile mother and ending with his fatal revenge for his blindness, disability imagery helps provide structure to this narrative and articulate some of its central themes. Since Samson is referred to as a Nazirite, some scholars have read his story against the backdrop of the instructions for Nazirites in Numbers 6.
Resource Materials
Avalos, Hector. Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel. Atlanta: Scholars, 1995.
Avalos, Hector, Sarah Melcher, Jeremy Schipper, eds. This Abled Body: Rethinking Disability and Biblical Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007.
Dorman, Johanna. The Blemished Body: Deformity and Disability in the Qumran Scrolls. Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit, 2007.
Moss, Candida and Jeremy Schipper, eds. Disability Studies and Biblical Literature. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming.
Olyan,Saul M. Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Raphael, Rebecca. Biblical Corpora: Representations of Disability in Hebrew Biblical Literature. New York: T & T Clark, 2008.
Schipper, Jeremy. Disability and Isaiah's Suffering Servant. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Schipper, Jeremy. Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story. New York: T & T Clark, 2006.
Materials
Computer, LCD Projector, Screen
PowerPoint presentation in Guide
Biblical Text
Activity/Action Project
1. Prior to class, ask students to read Numbers 6 and Judges 13-16. Instruct students to list all of the verses in which a character is described physically and think about the way that they visualize the characters while reading the story. Ask them to write up a detailed description of how they imagined these characters. Instruct them to locate the verses in Judges 13-16 which support or challenge the way that they imagined the characters looked.
2. After class, ask students to write a 3-5 page paper which analyzes other examples of disability in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. They might want to focus on the concept of barrenness/infertility in the line of Sarah and Abraham in Genesis. They could even analyze the story of Job, in which Job has a skin disease.They may want to cite secondary sources referenced in the attached bibliography of critical sources on disability in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, or use their own close readings. Instruct them to use whichever citation style the professor indicates, and make sure they provide proper citation for all quoted material in their papers.
Reflection
Why do you think disability imagery is often used in literature, from antiquity to the present, to express tragic, moralistic, or other literary themes? How might the representation of disability in literature, art, or film influence the way that we may view the everyday lived experiences of people with disabilities today? How might it affect how we value people with disabilities?
Lesson 2
Uninformed Consent: Medical Testing on Vulnerable Populations
Ann Keefer, PhD, Institute on Disabilities, Temple University
HUMANITIES/HISTORY OF SCIENCE TEXT
Edward Jenner, Vaccination Against Smallpox
CONTENT AREAS ADDRESSED
Medical testing, American history, history of institutionalization, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, poliomyelitis, Holmesburg Prison experiments, Belmont Report
Rationale for the Lesson
People with disabilities, including institutionalized children, have often been used as subjects for medical research, posing questions of consent, vulnerable populations, and medical ethics. This lesson explores a brief history of medical testing in America, using the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Jonas Salk’s poliomyelitis vaccine trial, and various tests on inmates at the Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia, PA as important points in the timeline of the reform of medical testing.
Background information
Edward Jenner’s discovery that milkmaids who had been exposed to cowpox had an immunity to the similar but more destructive smallpox, led him to test his hypothesis in a clinical trial. His first test subject was the four year old son of his gardener, who by today’s standards could not have given informed consent. Jenner used other children in his experiment, along with members of the working class, to prove that his hypothesis was correct. His monograph Vaccination Against Smallpox records his scientific method as well as his thoughts about the proper preparation of vaccine and an argument with another scientist whose method was deemed inferior and possibly harmful.
References
Jenner, Edward. Vaccination Against Smallpox. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996.
Moreno, Jonathan D. Undue Risk: State Secret Experiments on Humans. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Hornblum, Alan M. Sentenced to Science: One Black Man’s Story of Imprisonment in America. University Park, PA: The Penn State University Press, 2007.
Jones, James H. Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. New York: The Free Press, 1981.
Kluger, Jeffrey. Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004.
Wikipedia: The Nuremberg Code, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, The Belmont Report.
CITI Program:
American Experience: The Polio Crusade
Goals/Aims
Students will understand disability as part of diversity
Students will describe the concept of social stigma and be able to apply it to historical events
Students will learn how people with disabilities and members of other minority groups have been used as medical experimentation subjects
Students will reflect on the creation and reinforcement of codes and regulations for the ethical treatment of people in human subjects research
Materials
Computer, LCD Projector, Screen
PowerPoint presentation in Lesson 2 in the Guide
Video Sample Presentation: “Uninformed Consent”
Jenner’s Text
Activity/Action Project
1. Prior to class, ask students to read the Nuremberg Code and watch selected portions of the PBS program American Experience: The Polio Crusade. Ask them to define for themselves whom they feel would be a “vulnerable population” and therefore should be excluded from medical testing and experimentation. What are their criteria for determining who is or is not a vulnerable population? Can they think of a modern public health crisis similar to poliomyelitis in terms of the widespread fear and public willingness to support the search for a solution or cure?
2. After class, have students read the Belmont Report (1979) and compare it with the provisions of the Nuremberg Code (1949).What had changed in the intervening thirty years to prompt the writing of the Belmont Report? How are the rights and safety of human test subjects protected today?
A good overview of the Belmont Report can be found here:
Reflection
Why do you think people with disabilities, particularly children with physical and intellectual disabilities living in state institutions, were considered appropriate subjects for medical research? Can we justify the participation of people with disabilities in medical experiments and drug trials today? How does the concept of social stigma affect how we value people with disabilities?
Lesson 3
The Disability Movement and The Souls of Black Folk
Joshua Lukin, PhD, English Department, Temple University
HUMANITIES/HISTORY TEXT
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
CONTENT AREAS ADDRESSED
Disability Rights, Models of Disability, Stigma, African-American History, Stereotypes in Entertainment Media, Disability and Rhetoric
Rationale for the Lesson
Once people with disabilities are recognized to be an oppressed group that has organized for its civil rights, the temptation is great to frame disability as “like race” and understand it through analogies to the African-American civil rights movement. Such analogies are valuable tools. But to avoid oversimplification of one movement or the other, and to avoid appropriating one people’s struggle as a metaphor for another, a thorough examination of those analogies and of the tension between those movements is necessary.
Goals/Aims
Students will understand the argument that people with disabilities are stereotyped in the narrative arts
Students will describe the emotional appeals made through images of disability in narrative
Students will recognize how images and rhetoric of disability are used in political arguments
Students will reflect on the risks of “sliding stigma”: how the liberatory claims of an oppressed group can mobilize or perpetuate stigma against another group
Students will identify what various freedom movements might have in common and learn about from one another
Background information
Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, in the fiction, memoir, and history that constitute his book-length essay The Souls of Black Folk, attempts to persuade American readers of the early twentieth century that freed slaves and their descendants are in urgent need of support and that black Americans must be allowed access to all areas of American life, the arts and professions as well as the trades and menial jobs. In addition to depicting the oppression suffered by rural African Americans in the U.S. South, Du Bois also details the spiritual toll that stigma takes upon the educated African American. His argument consistently uses the language of disability to depict the condition black Americans have been reduced to by slavery and poverty; and he uses images of health and able-bodiedness to depict the aspirations of black Americans.