GWSS3215: Bodies That Matter: Feminist Approaches to Disability Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic has made questions of disability and ableism central and visible for all of us as never before. Dis/ability is not a physical or mental defect but a form of social meaning mapped to certain bodies in larger systems of power and privilege. Feminist approaches explore dis/ability as a vector of oppression intersecting and constituted through race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. The course examines ideologies of ableism and the material realities of such oppression, and works toward imagining and constructing a more just and equitable society. As health care is differentially distributed or limited for people who are sickened by COVID-19, we see that systems of social and economic power determine the life chances of those who claim, or are claimed by disability. Meanwhile, people with disabilities have developed many daily life strategies that can be models for everyone coping with the pandemic.

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