ENGL5034 · English

Seminar: Dis/Ability in American Literature

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Disability has played a central role in American literary and cultural production, from Captain Ahab's conspicuous missing limb to the "deformed" villains of modern-day horror flicks. At the same time, it is only in recent decades that disability has emerged as a category of academic analysis along the lines of race, gender, and sexuality. A field that draws upon critical race and gender studies, and yet which has also pointed out that disability is an identity category that many will join in their lifetimes, disability studies has much to teach us about the way we conceive of ourselves as subjects. This course introduces students to the rich field of disability studies and its tools for analyzing American literature. Beginning from the premise that disability is a social and cultural phenomenon rather than simply a biological or medical fact, we will explore such questions as: What has "counted" as disability for our various authors, and how have they incorporated it in their plots? What are the specific meanings that attach to ability and disability in a U.S. culture invested in individualism, social mobility, and American exceptionalism? How does disability impact American literary conceptions of "the human"? Where does it intersect with other identity categories such as gender or race? How have canonical and popular authors made use of disability, and how have disabled scholars and artists written back? In this seminar, students will complete outside research on the social and cultural history of disability (choosing from topics such as the ugly laws, disability and war, and social media disability activism) that they present to the class to contextualize our literary texts. We will also consult primary source documents in the Burns Library that trace the history of institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and activism in the U.S.