The March 23 graduate seminar in Medical Humanities (3-5 pm; via Zoom) will be on the intersections between Disability Studies and Health Humanities. The guest lecturer will be Katherine Williams (University of Toronto). She will start the session with a survey of the history of the field and current debates. After that, students will discuss Tobin Siebers' Disability Theory.
Disability studies emerged out of the disability civil rights movement in the late twentieth century. Early scholarship distinguishes the medical model of disability, which locates physical and mental impairments in individual bodies, from the social model, which understands the world as disabling people. The social model names both architectural and attitudinal barriers as the cause of disablement. Over the last few decades, the field has expanded to include individuals with a wide range of disabilities—not just physical conditions, but also mental and chronic ones. At its broadest, disability studies encourages scholars to value disability as a form of cultural difference. (Source: Clare Mullaney, “Disability Studies”)
Join us for a presentation by Professor Williams on the history and current debates in the field, followed by a discussion of Tobin Siebers’ Disability Theory, in the context of the Medical Humanities graduate seminar taught this Spring. For Zoom log-in information, please contact Stephanie Hilger (hilger@Illinois.edu).
