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This forum explores what disability studies is and model how to use language and representations of disability as an instructional tool in writing (and other) classes. Speakers who will initiate the conversation are members of Beyond Compliance and disAbility Law Society:

Rebecca Cory, Julia Morse, Jagdish Chander

Notes from the conversation:

Julie: We have two ads we want to watch and then discuss with you. The commercials: 1) Christopher Reeves (Nuveen) and 2) Dan Keplinger (Cingular Wireless) While you watch, think about what words you would use to describe these two commercials. What words were used in these commercials that pertain to disabilities?

Ad #1: The words participants used to describe the Christopher Reeve/Nuveen ad were Superman/Heroic/Comic book, manipulative, heart-tugger, congratulative, normalizing, offensive, condescending, and paternalistic. Words to describe people with disabilities in the commercial: "very special", cancer, AIDS, steps forward.

Ad #2: The words used to describe the Dan Keplinger/Cingular Wireless ad were religious, reverence, muse, singular, transcendent. Words to describe people with disabilities in the commercial: gimp, creativity, expression, lucky, person vs. body.

Jags: Two Views of Disability:
1) The Medical Model of Disability looks at a person with a disability as someone with a deficit, from a medical point of view. Disability is a disease and must either be prevented or cured. It is a problem to be fixed. There is no emphasis on the social aspects of disability. The impairment is located in the body or mind rather than in the larger society. This is the historically prevalent view.

2) The Social Model of Disability: views disability as a cultural construction. It presumes Disability is part of the human experience. This way of thinking about disability intersects with other movements (allies with civil rights movement, for instance)

Disability Studies uses the social model. DS has roots in disability activism and civil rights. There is a critical analysis of the position of people with disabilities in society. Rather than viewing disability as a deficit, 'disabilities' are viewed/described as characteristics.

People First Language is language that puts the person first (a person who is blind, a person who has epilepsy), and reclaims some of the terms that have traditionally been used in a pejorative way (gimp in the Cingular commercial, for instance). Person first language allows people to choose how they want to be labeled, and it takes into account the positioning of the speaker.

Rebecca: Let's use this theoretical framework to discuss the commercials some more, and then think about how we can move this information into the writing classroom.

Dana: We could ask what models are at work here, as far as representations? The Reeves commercial matched up with the old model, the medical model, because it uses the terms "cure" and relates spinal injury with cancer and AIDS.

Rachel: It plays off of Reeves' role as Superman, someone who rises above the crowd.

Carol: Reeves' image has been manipulated to make him look taller, slimmer. They make him fit into an ideal.

Rachel: I'd want my students to think about who these companies are. Is Nuveen really investing our time and energy and money into this type of research? Or is this just a ploy?

Dawnelle: And who is the audience? What is expected at this moment [The Super Bowl]?

Carol: There is a gap between a commercial promoting investment, a way to get rich. But the commercial is showing the "do good" aspect of investing (if you invest, you are somehow doing good). There isn't a connection between the two-investing money and doing good.

Rachel: It is a happy story because he ends up looking just like able-bodied people.

Rebecca: Why is there tension surrounding Reeves in the disability movement? Because he has the money to fight this personally while many do not have nearly this amount of money. Reeves is problematic because he promotes scientific research at the expense of current human rights.

Rebecca suggested ways that disability could be approached in the classroom:

1) Deaf President Now—In the '80s, the board of Gallaudet University hired a hearing candidate for President over two deaf candidates. Exercises: Write articles about this controversy from different perspectives. Evaluate the articles for language. Compare to other student protests, for example, Kent State, the integration of white colleges, etc.

2) Tunnel of Oppression http://www.dailyorange.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=585462 Exercises: Apply social model to program that represents medical model. BCCC wrote extensively about this program. See their article at: http://home.att.net/~TANCWEBDESIGN/BCCCTUNNEL.html

How can we start seeing these problems as cultural rather than individual?

Margaret: I read an article about exercises that are supposed to make able-bodied people (or temporarily able bodied) more sensitive to the experiences of people with disabilities, such as "walking a mile in my shoes" or "rolling a mile in my wheels." How do you make a common cause without reducing it to feeling sorry for?

Rebecca: Rather than simulation, students could analyze an environment, a space, without actually sitting in a wheelchair.

Paul: How does Syracuse rate as far as meeting regulations? And how is the environment, socially, for students with a 'disability'?

Jags: The Office of Disability Studies has made a big impact on this campus. I've been here for 2 1/2 years and there have been significant changes.

Margaret: How much of the university response is working under a medical model and how much is working under a social model?

Rebecca: SU is on the cusp of getting disability, but it hasn't gone all the way yet. Beyond Compliance was founded on the idea that mere compliance wasn't enough. They hope to move the university to think about universal design: people can access the environment in the way that is most convenient for them.

Mary: There was an article last semester in the D.O. that reported a high level administrator as saying that disability isn't a part of hiring practices, because there isn't a large population of students with disabilities for them to be a role model for.

Rebecca: There is a constant cry in the disability movement: Nothing about us without us. There is a need for disabled scholars in this field-it can't just be "abled" scholars.