Temple U. Fall '08 Disability Studies

I want to draw to your attention two graduate courses that are going to be offered at Temple University, Philadelphia, in Fall 2008

Mike Dorn [email] will be the lead faculty for the new course Disability Studies 5405: Disability Studies in the Humanities [PDF]. Drawing on the rich oral history, media, literary, and archival resources available in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, this class will help students to explore a variety of historical and contemporary sites. Trained as a cultural geographer, Dr. Dorn’s own research focuses on historical patterns of oppression and liberation as well as the role that disability ascriptions play in the bounding of the ‘normal.’ Although he draws on international intellectual currents and aesthetics, Mike is particularly interested in their cultural expression in the MidAtlantic and the Midwest.
Fall 2008, Monday evenings, from 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Disability Studies 5401: Disability Rights and Culture will be taught by my colleague, disability scholar and activist Carol Marfisi [email]. Drawing on her background in psychology, Carol explores the phenomenological experience of disability and for the historical formation of movements for disability rights. Course topics include eugenics, the parents movement, the developmental disability and independent living movements, assistive technology, sexuality and relationships, and disability culture.
Fall 2008, Thursday evenings, from 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Whichever course one takes, students leave better equipped to act thoughtfully and effectively in the present, to fight for change in their families, communities and societies. Don't hesitate to call or email if you would like to receive more information on these classes and how to enroll.

Radio interview with Burch & Joyner

Disability history on your iPod--it's a click, drag, and drop away. North Carolina Public Radio aired a nice long half-hour interview today with Susan Burch and Hannah Joyner, authors of Unspeakable: A Life Story of Junius Wilson (UNC Press 2007). It's online here.

Junius Wilson and Floyd Brown

I posted almost a year ago about Susan Burch and Hannah Joyner's research on Junius Wilson (1908-2001)--a deaf African-American man who was arrested at age 17 but never tried, was labeled insane, was placed in a state hospital in North Carolina, castrated, and held for more than seventy years. The extraordinary book Burch and Joyner co-wrote will be released this fall, as Unspeakable: The Life Story of Junius Wilson (UNC Press 2007).

It would be nice to think that stories like Wilson's are safely in the past, but they're just not. Floyd Brown is another North Carolina man, also African-American, also disabled, also arrested under shady circumstances and never tried, held in the state hospital for the last fourteen years now. Carolina Legal Assistance is on the case, trying to get the murder charge against Brown dismissed, so he can be freed. "Mr. Brown has fallen through the cracks," says the CLA's Greg McGrew. No doubt about that.

Susan Burch, on Junius Wilson (16 November, Ohio State)

If you're anywhere near Columbus, OH, make plans to go see Susan Burch speak on Junius Wilson (1908-2001), on Thursday, 16 November, 5:30-7:30pm, at Saxby Auditorium, Drinko Hall, Moritz College of Law. From the press release:

Dr. Susan Burch, Associate Professor of History at Gallaudet University, will address broad historical issues, including Jim Crow racism, disability discrimination, eugenics, & activism as they effected the life of Junius Wilson, a deaf African American. In 1925, Mr. Wiilson was falsely accused of attempted rape, deemed incompetent to stand trial, & imprisoned in the State Hospital for the Colored Insane for more than 7 decades. After 76 years in the State Hospital, his release was won by court order. It was officially noted in 1970 that Wilson was not mentally disabled. Dr. Burch teaches Russian, American, Deaf, & Disability History.

FOR PROGRAM DETAILS CONTACT: Brenda Brueggemann at brueggemann.1@osu.edu. The event will be signed in ASL. For questions about access or other types of accommodations, please contact the ADA Coordinator's Office at ada-osu@osu.edu.

Read more about Junius Wilson (shown above, left). Also check out information about Project Orange Neptune, which coordinates efforts to identify and improve the lives of Deaf people languishing in mental institutions, from misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and little access to Deaf culture (or even comprehensible information about their rights).

Susan Burch is cowriting a book about Wilson with Hannah Joyner; if you can't get to Columbus, watch for the book (last I heard, it's coming from UNC Press, and the title will be Unspeakable: The Life Story of Junius Wilson). I was on a disability history panel with Burch and Joyner at the 2005 American Historical Association meeting in Seattle--and I've worked with both of them in other contexts--their research is important and their presentations are worth attending.

Remembering Anarcha

Petra Kuppers posted this announcement today on DS-Hum (I added the links):

Remembering Anarcha
Sunday, 14th May 2006, 5-7
Free
Theatre, Taylor Center
Auburn University, Montgomery AL

Black history, disability studies and performance scholars work together to remember Montgomery women Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey.

Come and join us for a discussion of Anarcha and J. Marion Sims, the gynecologist who used slave women as experimental subjects while searching for a cure for fistula.

We would love to hear from you about what you know about this story, how the local sites are marked, what the story means to you, how you remember it locally, and how you see its effects on race relations and medical practices today.

And we would love to tell and show you how we go about using movement, words and visuals to connect Anarcha's story to disability culture history and black history.

Petra Kuppers (Associate Professor, English, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Anita Gonzalez (Associate Professor, Theatre and Dance, State University of New York – New Paltz)
Carrie Sandahl (Associate Professor in the School of Theatre at Florida State University, Tallahassee)

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And while we're mentioning Carrie Sandahl.... Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance (University of Michigan Press 2005), co-edited by Carrie Sandahl and Phil Auslander, was just awarded the Best Book Prize for 2006 from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. It's part of the Corporealities series of disability studies scholarship from the University of Michigan Press (David L. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, series editors). Congratulations to all involved!