In this class, we’ll think together about disability’s technological pasts and presents. Drawing upon a wide range of media, digital life writing, and scholarly essays, we’ll collaboratively imagine what an accessible future might look like. In particular, we’ll work from an understanding of accessibility as a lived practice that generates embodied insights about the digital and physical world around us. Among other topics, we’ll examine the disability dongle effect (or, the impact of useless technologies made for disabled people), academic ableism, crip ingenuity and/as access creation, and digital disability advocacy. Over the course of the semester, we’ll have a chance to learn from local disability leaders both within and outside UM.

For the class’s final project, we’ll collaboratively research access histories through the communities, technologies, and institutions we inhabit. Together, we’ll also imagine how we might shift or build upon these stories in pursuit of radical accessible futures.

This course satisfies the following CURRENT English major/minor requirement: NOT APPLICABLE

This course satisfies the following NEW English major/minor requirements: Foundations & Methods (200-level), Time (Contemporary/Modern)

Course Requirements:

This is a blended class. We will primarily meet in-person, but we will occasionally meet on Zoom when we have guest speakers joining us, as well as when we are working on our digital projects. 

In addition to its theoretical/critical focus, this class will also involve some digital production and play. No experience with digital tools or software is required to take this course. We’ll learn together!

Intended Audience:

This class is geared toward students from a wide range of backgrounds, interests, and disciplines. We will frequently pool our collective and interdisciplinary knowledge in our class discussions and projects.