PHIL 418 / WS 419:
FEMINIST ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY
FEMINIST ETHICS AND DISABILITY
Spring 2009
Instructor: Dr. Vrinda Dalmiya
Office Hours: TTh 10.45 – 11.45 and also by appointment
Office: B303, Sakamaki Hall
General Description
In this seminar we will look at some conceptual issues surrounding disability in the light of feminist ethics and feminist theories of justice. Our “issues” relate to the ways in which society deals with difference and the importance of embodiment and dependency for ethical deliberations. While analyzing feminist attempts to de-center the independent, rational subject as the ethical agent and model citizen, we shall look at strategies that foreground caring labor both in theory and public policy.
Texts
Susan Wendell, The Rejected Body
Eva Kittay, Love’s Labor / Selections
Maurice Hamington & Dorothy Miller, Socializing Care
Michael Berube, Life As We Know It
Pete Earley, Crazy
Xerox package
Class Handouts
Recommended readings will be put on reserve in the Philosophy Department Office
Assessment
2 Critical Responses – 5-6 pages each (25 + 25 points)
Essay – 6-8 pages (30 points)
Group Presentation – (15 points) The format for this will be explained in class
Participation – (5 points)
Objectives
- Expose students to some key concepts in ethics and philosophy of disability
- Familiarize them with some contrasts between feminist and non-feminist theories of justice.
- Enable them to discern and assess arguments/reasons in support of a philosophical view
- Encourage them to apply key notions like social construction of gender and its intersections with other vectors of power to understand disability and identity
- Show the relevance of feminist philosophical theories to “real world” policy issues
- Initiate writing of clear expositions, analyses and philosophical critiques
Phil 418 is a writing intensive course. Students who do not complete all writing assignments will get a D- or an F and will not earn W Focus credit.
Any student who plagiarizes in this course will receive a failing grade and will be referred to the Dean of Students. So please cite your sources.
If you feel you need reasonable accommodations because of the impact of a disability, please (i) contact the KOKUA Program, or (ii) speak with me privately to discuss your specific needs. I will be happy to work with you and the KOKUA program to meet access needs related to your documented disability.
Topics and Readings
The readings listed below are arranged thematically and NOT by class period. So obviously we shall often spend more than one class period on a topic. We shall follow the order of the readings given and I shall also announce during each class period what we will be discussing the next day. Note that when multiple readings are listed under a single topic, you usually do not have to read all of them together for one class period.
Attendance in class is very important because new material might be presented. Your written work must reflect familiarity with the interpretations discussed in class though you can, of course, disagree with them and are always encouraged to take them further.
PART I: THINKING DISABILITY IN A FEMINIST CONTEXT
1. What is Disability?
Wendell, Chap. 1
2. Why Disability and Feminism together? “Dilemma of Difference”
Wendell, Chap. 3
Garland Thomson, “Feminist Theory, the Body and the Disabled Figure” - Xerox
Minnow, “Dilemma of Difference” - Xerox
Kittay, Introduction (Feminist Critiques of Equality)
3. Social Model of Disability
Wendell, Chap. 2
4. The “Myth of Control:” Acceptance of Body and Vulnerability
Wendell, Chap. 4
Wendell, Chap. 5
Wendell, Chap. 7
PART II: THINKING ETHICS IN THE FEMINIST CONTEXT
5. Feminist Ethics
Baier, “What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?” – Xerox
Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Selection)
Tronto, “An Ethic of Care” – Xerox
Tronto, “Care and Political Theory” - Xerox
Kittay – Chap. 1
Kittay – Chap. 2
6. The Contrast with Traditional Ethics (Kant and Rawls)
Friedman – “The Impracticality of Impartiality” - Xerox
Kittay, Part 2, Chap. 3
Kittay, Chap. 4
7. Feminist Ethics and Disability
Wendell, Chap. 6
PART III: TRANSITIONING TO SOCIAL POLICY
8. The Justification for Welfare
Kittay, Part 3; Chap. 5
9. Hamington and Miller, Chaps. from Socializing Care
(2/3 weeks)
PART IV: APPLICATIONS:
RETHINKING DISABILITY POLICY REGARDING MENTAL DISABILITIES
Student Presentations and Projects
10. Berube, Life As We Know It
11. Earley, Crazy
TOPICS (with READINGS)
PART I: WHY LINK DISABILITY WITH GENDER? A STORY OF ‘OTHERNESS’
1. INTRODUCTION: Sameness and Difference
Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, “Feminist Theory, the Body, and Disabled Figures,” 278-283
Wendell, Introduction
Iris Young, “Five Faces of Oppression”
Erving Goffman – Stigma (Selections)
Martha Minnow, “The Dilemma of Difference” 19-23; 40-48
Kittay, “Introduction: Feminist Critiques of Equality”
2. “ENFREAKMENT:” Early Representations of Disability in the Fairground: Its Interface with Sexism and Racism:
Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, “From Wonder to Error: A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity”
Bernth Lindfors, “Ethnological Show Business: Footlighting the Dark Continent”
Jan Bondeson, “Three Remarkable Specimens in the Hunterian Museum”
Jan Bondeson, ‘The Strange Story of Julia Pastrana”
FILM: Discussion of Todd Brownings, FREAKS
PART II: FRAMING DISABILITY AND BEING HUMAN
3. MEDICAL MODEL: Critiquing Disability as the ‘defective body’
Wendell, Chap. 1, 11-23
Lennard Davis, “Constructing Normalcy” 1-21
Ron Amundson, “Biological Normality and the ADA” (2)
Joel Fienberg, “Disability and Illness”
Wendell, Chap. 5
4. SOCIAL MODEL:
Anita Silvers, “Formal Justice” (Selections)
Susan Wendell, Chap 2
6. “Representing Jamie” - A Memoir of Living with Disability
Berube, Life As We Know It
7. MINORITY-GROUP MODEL: Disability as Identity and Disability Culture
Harlan Hahn, “Advertising the Acceptably Employable Image: Disability and Capitalism”
Wendell, Chap 3
Wendell, Chap 1, 25-33
Lane Harlan, “Construction of Deafness”
FILM: Discussion of CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
8. THE MYTH OF CONTROL: Human Dependency and Autonomy
Wendell, Chap. 7
Wendell, Chap. 4
Iris Young – “Lived Body and Gender”
Adrienne Asch, “Critical Race Theory, Feminism, and Disability”
Handout: Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, “A Genealogy of Dependency” ?
PART III: DISABILITY AND JUSTICE
9. ADA (AMERICANS WITH DISABILLITIES ACT) and Civil Rights Movements.
Richard Scotch, “Making Changes: The ADA as an Instrument of Social Reform”
Patricia Illingworth and Wendy Parmet, “Positively Disabled”
David Wasserman, “Stigma without Impairment: Demedicalizing Disability Discrimination”
Mark Kelman, “Does Disability Status Matter?”
Handout: Arlene Mayerson and Diller, “The Supreme Court’s Nearsighted View of the ADA”
10. THEORIES OF JUSTICE: Feminist Liberalism and Kittay’s Care-Ethics against Rawlsian ‘Social Contract’
Wendell, Chap. 6
(A) : Martha Nussbaum: Capabilities Approach and Disability (Frontiers of Justice)
Introduction
Chap. 1, “Social Contracts & Three Unresolved Problems of Justice” 9-18; 25 – 35; 69-81
Chap. 2, “Disabilities and Social Contract” 98-113
Chap. 3, “Capabilities and Disabilities” 155-173; 176-9
(B): Eva Kittay: Public Care Ethics and Disability (Loves Labor)
Preface, ix-xiv
Chap. 1, “Relationships of Dependency and Equality”
Chap 2, “Vulnerability and the Moral Nature of Dependency Relations” 49-54; 64-73
Pt II: Political Liberalism and Human Dependency
Chap 5, “Policy and a Public Ethic of Care” 117 - 122; 127 – 133; 140-146
Chap 7, “Maternal Thinking with a Difference” 173-181
PART IV: GROUP PROJECTS ON POLICY ISSUES
10. SUGESTED POLICY ISSUES
(A) The Culture of Beauty/Is ‘Fat’ a Disability?
Alice Walker, “Beauty: When the Other dancer is the Self”
April Herndon, “Disparate But Disabled: Fat Embodiment & Disability Studies”
(B) Aging, Disability and Caring
Iris Young, “A Room of One’s Own: Old Age, Extended Care and Privacy
(C) Disability and Reproductive Rights: Pre Natal Testing and Selective Abortion
Ruth Hubbard, “Ability and Disability: Who Should and Who Should Not Inhabit the World”
(D) Selective Health Care for People with Disability
Dan Brock, “Health care resource Prioritization and Discrimination against Persons with Disability”
(E) Disability and Education – Questions of Inclusion and Segregation in the Classroom
Martha Minnow, “The Dilemma of Difference (in Education)” 23-40
(F) “Work” and Disability
Gregory Kavka, “Disability and the Right to Work”
(These are just suggested topics and a sample reading from each. After you pick a topic, you need to come up with a reading list of your own and discuss that with me. Also, look at Wendell, Chap 6 as background for this section.)
