WGSS 361
Marking Presence: Reading Disability in/to Latina/o/x Media Fall 2022
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed WGSS 361 / LATS 344 / AMST 361
This is not the current course catalog

This course spans Divisions I, II, and III in its exploration of the representation of disability and Latina/o/x identity in the contemporary US context. Employing Angharad Valdivia’s (2020) notion of “marking presence” to describe the intentional ways in which Latina/o/x subjects gain and hold on to mainstream media space, the class places the fields of Disability Studies, Latina/o/x Studies, Gender Studies and Media Studies into conversation. We address the following questions and others: What does media reveal to us about the place of disability and Latinidad in contemporary US life, particularly as these categories intersect with questions of gender, sexuality, national identity and citizenship? How might we read Latinidad and disability into media texts in which they are not otherwise centered? What are the advantages of deploying mainstream media presence as a claim to power for disabled Latina/o/x individuals, particularly those who are multiply marginalized? What are the limitations of such an approach? We will focus on these questions, as well as deploy various media examples (podcasts, social media, film, television and music) alongside scholarly texts to explore topics impacting the Latina/o/x communities such as the relationship between migration and trauma, the gendered archetype of the Latina “Loca,” disability in academia, temporality and disability (“Crip Time”), the politics of self-care amongst Latinas/xs in the neoliberal context, and the very legal, cultural, and social category of “disabled” itself within dominant society as well as Latina/o/x communities.