AMST 253
Embodied Knowledges: Latinx, Asian American, and Black American Writing on Invisible Disability Fall 2023
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed AAS 253 / LATS 254

Class Details

This interdisciplinary course assumes an expansive approach towards disability, defining it not exclusively as a legible identity that one can lay claim to, but rather as an identity grounded in one’s relationship to power (Kim and Schalk, 2020). This course centers on the critical role of lived experience as a key site of everyday theorization for the multiply marginalized, and specifically on the ways in which invisibly disabled Latinx, Asian American, and Black American individuals write the self. As scholars in disability studies argue, self-representations of disabled individuals carry the potential for us as a society to move beyond the binary narratives of “tragedy or inspiration” so often associated with disability. Rather, the self-produced narratives of US disabled writers of color offer a much more nuanced portrayal of everyday life with disability/ies for the multiply marginalized. Much like invisible disability itself, these self-representations ultimately refute traditional depictions of disability, and underscore the ways in which the bodymind serves as a rich, albeit often overlooked, site of knowledge. Embodied Knowledges draws on the insights of disability studies, crip studies, anthropology, literary studies, medicine, psychology, education, cultural studies, ethnic studies, American studies, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, and trauma studies. We will examine the works of Latinx, Asian American, and Black American writers and scholars others in relationship to one another, and as points of departure for examining issues such as the relationship between immigration and disability; intergenerational trauma; the impacts of paradigms such as the Model Minority Myth and notions of cultural deficit; passing; the politics of disability disclosure, the paradoxes of invisible disability; invisible disability in academic spaces; the role of culture and categories of difference such as race, gender, class and immigration status in societal approaches to and understandings of invisible disability; and future visions in the realm of disability justice and care work.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 12
Expected: 12
Class#: 1223
Grading: yes pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Two 5-6 page essays; One group question assignment; Final reflection document
Prerequisites: None.
Enrollment Preferences: Preference given to majors or concentrators in LATS, AMST, and AAST, in order of seniority.
Distributions: Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AAS 253 Division II AMST 253 Division II LATS 254 Division II
DPE Notes: This course takes up issues of difference and power in every one of its readings and materials. In particular, we examine the intersection of race, ethnicity, dis/ability, gender, sexuality and nation in our discussions of how disability helps to define our understanding of US identity and citizenship, particularly for US communities of color.
Attributes: AAS Non-Core Electives
AMST Comp Studies in Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora
LATS Comparative Race + Ethnic Studies Electives
LATS Core Electives

Class Grid

Updated 8:02 pm

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