This course culminates with a 3-to-4-minute disability-conscious research video essay in lieu of a more traditional literary or
cultural analysis paper (!). The purpose of this final assignment is to advance a critical intervention that challenges
dominant ways of apprehending and interpreting disability. Rather than fashion a more “positive” account of disability,
video essays should tell a compelling story about the nuances of atypical corporeality obscured by nondisabled worldviews
as rendered in pop culture, media, mainstream films, narrative art, and prosaic clinical literature, etc. Informed by insights
from disability studies, disabled life writing, and intersectional transformative justice frameworks gathered from class
readings and discussions, you will employ the medium of digital storytelling to orient non-specialist audiences toward anti-
ableist exchanges with complex disabled embodiment. To promote visual and cognitive accessibility, all video essays will
include subtitles.
The option is to produce a video essay based on a relevant topic of interest: a current event (i.e., Section
504-sit ins, voting rights, disability representation in a major work or film(s) (i.e., the co-constitution of race and
acquired cognitive impairment in August Wilson’s Fences); problems ingredient to special education; senior citizen
homes (disability and geriatrics); a social media campaign or controversy; disability and employment; disability and
sports; disability and dance; etc. Fair use “cultural artifacts and products” related to disability may include (but are not limited to):
● Activist articles and/or manifestos
● Advertisements
● Artwork by a disabled artist
● Audio and video cassettes
● Clippings from defunct or current magazines
● Eugenics pamphlets, speeches, correspondence
● Major and/or minority-focused periodicals
● Open-source images
● Photographed items from permanent or temporary exhibits (when permitted)
● Protest memorabilia/ephemera
● Public broadcasting recordings
● Segments of films or documentaries
● Segments of novels, short stories, plays, memoirs.
Consider the following questions as you develop your intervention:
1. How does Disability Studies enable you to anticipate and challenge prevailing notions about disabled embodiment?
2. In what ways does a disability-centered critique of cultural artifacts push you to re-assess your assumptions about how
disabled people navigate worlds designed for others?
3. What do your selected artifacts reveal about cultural anxieties projected onto nonnormative minds and bodies?
4. When and how do cultural texts/artifacts deploy “disability” as a metaphor for insufficiency?
5. In what ways do the rhetorics of inclusionism, compassion, compensation, and nominal accommodation foreclose a
multidimensional understanding of actual disabled embodiment?
6. How do representational treatments of disability reinforce or unsettle presupposed standards of normalcy and
competency (perhaps they do both). In what manner do these depictions empower or disempower those with
disabilities?
7. How do your artifacts or sample(s) of cultural production foreground one or more marginalized collectivities that
congeal with disability, even if just obliquely: racialized, queer, trans*, gender(ed), impoverished, immigrant, ethnic,
among others? (i.e., the queer d/Deaf community; people of color living with AIDS)
8. How do your artifacts bear witness to the active role people with disabilities assume in shaping and transforming
culture?
Suggested structure for a digital story:
1. Introduce artifacts and examine noteworthy elements.
2. Explain the relevance of your chosen artifacts to Disability Studies
3. Elaborate your intervention:
a. Address the productive tensions within the DS discipline (i.e., note how a cultural artifact may, at once, depict
disability as a category of disadvantage and bear witness to the transformative potency of disabled
embodiment).
b. Prompt audiences unacquainted with Disability Studies, Culture, and Justice to recognize overt or subtle
ableism underpinning cultural production.
c. Show how your analysis advances non-ableist interpretive practices.
4. Conclude with a personal reflection: How did your exposure to Disability Studies elicit a change in your perceptions of
disabled embodiment? How does a disability-conscious interrogation of cultural production already constitute an anti-
ableist action?
To ensure successful completion of this project, students must:
1. Select at least two cultural artifacts placed together around a specific theme. Supplement chosen artifacts with related
images and video clippings to promote smooth transitions.
2. Generate a bibliography citing at least one theoretical piece assigned in class and one outside source (i.e., an
unassigned chapter in The Disability Studies Reader). Make use of Gelman library databases to locate pertinent
secondary sources!
3. Develop a storyboard displaying all images and documentary/filmic segments featured in your essay. Provide brief
summaries (1 to 2 sentences) of scripted content accompanying an image or set of images, then indicate background
audio elements for each scene (ambient, sfx, music, brief speech recording).
4. After drafting and submitting your storyboard, compose a fully developed script demonstrating critical engagement
with class readings.
5. Ensure that your Voiceover is intelligible and of sound quality (pun intended).
6. Include subtitles devoid of grammatical errors. Yellow font is best for legibility . Make sure your subtitles are in sync
with your narration.
7. Have fun! This is of utmost importance!
