ENGL 3127: Disability and Representation

3 Credit Hours

Prerequisite: ENGL 1102
This course will attend to the many ways disability is represented in literature, language, and culture, and the impacts these ways of thinking have on cultural understanding, attitudes, and public policies. Course texts will span a range of time periods, genres, and forms, and may include scholarly theory, novels, films, documentaries, graphic novels, poetry, medical literature, and scientific works.

Course Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

Compare and contrast competing models of disability, like the medical model, social model, political-relational model, and theories of complex embodiment.
Reframe social and cultural assumptions of normality and ability.
Articulate the ideas of literary disability studies scholars and draw upon these frameworks to interpret literature and culture.
Analyze representations of a variety of types of disability and intersectional identities, across a range of literary genres and forms.
Collaborate with a partner to teach a sample lesson to their peers.
Collect secondary research on a text or topic of choice and develop an original argument for a critical disability analysis essay.