WRDS 390 Writing Disability

Course overview

How is writing being used by disabled folks to challenge ableist practices of knowledge making both inside and outside of academic communities? In this course, we will take up this question. Students will analyze how Disabled writers are dismantling and rebuilding from the inside institutional structures that dictate whose bodies, whose knowledge, and what ways of knowing belong in the institution and are considered valid. In particular, students will engage with a repertoire of writing by Disabled academics, activists, and creatives who are radically transforming academic and public understandings of what counts as writing and knowledge.

As a student in this course, you will have the opportunity to engage with Disability theories and theories of writing which will allow you to examine the discursive and rhetorical strategies and features (textual, visual, auditory) produced and used by Disabled writers to convey “cripped” ways of knowing in a variety of discursive contexts^*. These include scholarly contexts such as academic fields and spaces. They also include public contexts that produce journalism, social media, comic books, spoken word, zines, and role-playing games (RPGs). We will examine how Disabled scholars and writers utilize (in order to “crip”) authoritative, normative standards of writing and discourse to establish a more flexible and responsive relationship between writing and knowledge. Students will have the opportunity to develop their own cripped research practices and contribute to the transformation of scholarly ways of knowing through different genres of writing and forms of communication.

All of us are either disabled or temporarily able bodied (TAB). This course is focused on the intersectional epistemologies that Disabled writers create through their existence and the articulation of their experiences in a world not built to include disabled modes of life and expression. The course and classroom space will itself be designed according to inclusive and universal design principles and we will all strive to meet the expectations of disability justice and access in all activities, assignments, and interactions with one another.

* A NOTE ON CRIP: Disabled people have encountered much violence and discrimination, and have had the word “cripple” often used in a harmful and derogatory way to label them. As a noun, “Crip” is about language reclamation similar to the history of the word Queer. Some Disabled people have reclaimed the word Crip as a way to reassert social power and control over their identities, and as a way to highlight the ways in which medical diagnoses may harm and misrepresent their identities and their inherent value. The word Crip can be used as a proper noun “Crip” or as a verb “cripping” – in both cases this means to apply a Disability Justice Lens to make something more accessible, inclusive, and empowering for disabled people. Crip Theory, therefore, is a politics of disruption and critique that strives to bring Disability Justice to knowledge and academic structures that have often been inaccessible to Disabled people.

A note on the personal nature of the course and our shared learning activities

Great care has been taken so that students can gain a realistic sense of the diversity of disability experiences through their readings and assignments. Many of the course’s authors use profound honesty and openness in discussing their experiences, which often hinge upon emotional responses of anger, care, conflict, empathy, love, and resentment, which may at first seem shocking. Be conscious that disability and difference are often experienced as vulnerability, and that we all react differently when we feel vulnerable or under threat. This radical vulnerability and the discomfort as well as recognition that it evokes is central to how the writers we engage with are cripping knowledge and scholarly writing and discourse. Because of the emotionally sensitive nature of our subject matter, as well as the lived experiences of many of us whose lives are touched by disability, we ask that all of us work together to create an inclusive, positive, and safe classroom space for all to think, learn, share, and experience.  All students should be willing to learn through self-reflection and be open to learning from the experiences of others. While we may at times speak in a personal way, please always respect the confidentiality of all members of the class and be careful that the particulars of discussion remain in the classroom, while our learning leaves the classroom.