DST 2020 Introduction to Disability Studies

[3 credit hours]

An overview of the key debates, conversations, and ideas about disability in the United States. This course features perspectives from the social sciences on topics such as activism, representation, society, and culture.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

Core Social Sciences, Multicultural US Diversity

DST 2980 Special Topics in Disability Studies

[1-4 credit hours]

Special topics in Disability Studies. Topics vary by instructor; may be repeated for credit.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 3030 Disability Culture

[3 credit hours]

An interdisciplinary exploration of the history and culture of disability, including the issues of stigmatizing and stereotyping, communication barriers and breakthroughs, educational segregation and mainstreaming and the experience of "passing."

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 3040 Disability, Technology, and Society

[3 credit hours]

Interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between disability and technology, focusing on the social and political dimensions of designing and using technology with, for, and by disabled people.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 3060 U.S. Disability History

[3 credit hours]

This course provides a historical overview of the lived experiences of people defined as disabled and changing historical definitions of disability in the region that became the United States of America. We will consider how major historical forces such as capitalism, industrialization, colonialism, and democratic ideals have impacted and been shaped by people with disabilities.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 3090 Disability in American Literature

[3 credit hours]

Disability In American Literature addresses a wide range of contemporary literary productions, including novels, graphic novels, plays, short stories, poetry, memoir, and personal essays, connecting these productions to an American literary genealogy and recognizing the deployment and resistance to ableism in American Literature. At the course’s conclusion, students will be able to understand how literature interacts with cultural stereotypes, ultimately understanding how literature can be utilized for disability justice and social change.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 3100 Disability and Chronic Illness

[3 credit hours]

This course investigates the relationship between chronic illness and disability, asking questions such as: Is chronic illness itself a disability? Does chronic illness cause disability? How do the social and medical models of disability affect our understanding of chronic illness? The course uses interdisciplinary texts (investigative journalism, memoir and literary nonfiction, philosophy, history, political science) to interrogate causes, treatments, cures and non-cures for people living with chronic illness.

Term Offered: Spring

DST 3250 Disability and Life Narratives

[3 credit hours]

This course will examine a diverse selection of disability life narratives and consider what they reveal about disability and the dominant culture.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 3600 Feminist Health Humanities

[3 credit hours]

This 15-week course will be taught from intersectional, feminist, health humanities perspectives. We will use the arts and culture in combination with humanistic social theory, to examine the following: gendered and racialized health disparities; gendered and racial constructions in the history of science/medicine; illness and disability life writing; biomedical ethics; the feminist health movement; grassroots community health organizing and feminist conceptualizations of wellbeing and radical self-care. Throughout the semester, there will be a sustained emphasis on health justice and the experiences of marginalized communities (women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, etc.). Participants will leave the course more aware of important discussions in the health humanities and more fully prepared to apply inclusive knowledge practices within majors and career paths involving “health” – broadly defined. The course fulfills core curriculum requirements for Multicultural U.S. Diversity & Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC).

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

Multicultural US Diversity

DST 3700 Disability and Communication

[3 credit hours]

In this course we will explore several key communication aspects of disability in society. We will examine the rhetoric of disability, including the ways disability is conceptualized and talked about as well as the growth of disability movements; communication technology and disability; mass media and disability, including the ways the media portray people with disabilities and disability-related issues; and a number of other topics, including interpersonal communication issues around disability.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 3980 Special Topics in Disability Studies

[1-4 credit hours]

Special topics in Disability Studies. Topics vary by instructor, may be repeated for credit.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 4000 Global Issues in Disability Studies

[3 credit hours]

Special focus will be on global and contemporary issues as they arise in changing political and social environments. Geopolitical area of focus may vary based instructor expertise.

Term Offered: Fall

DST 4100 Disability and Sexuality

[3 credit hours]

Utilizing a cultural studies approach, this course investigates complex questions of how someone becomes understood as abnormal in contemporary culture. The course looks at the disability justice and LGBTQA+ justice; trans studies and disability studies; public health and private rights. The course uses interdisciplinary texts including memoir and life writing, philosophy, history, public health and sexuality studies to address questions central to disability justice and lived experience.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 4200 Crip Arts, Crip Culture

[3 credit hours]

This course explores disability art across media and considers its relationships both with disability culture and with the culture-at-large.

Term Offered: Spring

DST 4300 Disability and Children's Literature - WAC

[3 credit hours]

Disabled characters and disability themes abound in texts presented to young readers. This course explores the use of disabled characters in a variety of nonfiction and fiction for young through young-adult readers.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 4400 Gender and Disability

[3 credit hours]

This course examines gender and disability from both theoretical and lived perspectives, particularly as intersecting with other structures of power such as race, nationality, sexuality, and rights. Recommended: DST 2020, DST 3020.

Term Offered: Spring

DST 4500 Asylums, Prisons and Total Institutions

[3 credit hours]

Institutionalization has been a major factor in the daily experiences and understandings of disability in U.S. culture. This course will reevaluate all assumptions about institutions by analyzing when and why these spaces of containment and enclosure, such as prisons and institutions, arise. We will explore how disability and madness are defined, by whom, and for what purposes. The course concludes by analyzing how some ways activists and scholars combat traditional notions of crime, punishment, disability and incarceration.

Term Offered: Fall

DST 4640 Disability Law and Human Rights

[3 credit hours]

Explores the intersections between disability rights and human rights by examining the development, the ideological framework, and the legal contexts of disability law in the U.S. and global contexts. Recommended: DST 2020, 3020, 3030, or 3060.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 4800 Autism and Culture

[3 credit hours]

This course examines the ongoing construction of autism and the autism spectrum, exploring the many controversies around this remarkable range of human conditions.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 4940 Internship In Disability Studies

[3 credit hours]

This course is a service learning model internship with on-campus and/or community agencies addressing disability studies issues. Sites must be approved by the instructor.

Prerequisites: DST 2020 with a minimum grade of D-

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 4950 Independent Study

[1-4 credit hours]

Students engage in independent research projects with the supervision of a faculty member.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 4960 Honors Thesis and Capstone Project

[1-4 credit hours]

Independent study projects for students seeking departmental honors.

Term Offered: Spring, Summer, Fall

DST 4980 Special Topics in Disability Studies

[1-4 credit hours]

Special topics in Disability Studies. Topics vary by instructor; may be repeated for credit.

Term Offered: Spring, Fall

DST 4990 Capstone in Disability Studies

[3 credit hours]

Provides students with an opportunity to engage with professionals and professors in a seminar format for the intensive study of a topic related to Disability Studies. The focus of the seminar will change from year to year.

Prerequisites: DST 2020 with a minimum grade of D-

Term Offered: Spring, Fall