Prof. Rodas guides you back through a semester of disability content in preparation for the final reflection assignment.

2. Fictions of Disability:
where we’ve been
Prof. Julia Miele Rodas
Lehman College
May 2022

3. representation matters

4. Stereotypes of disability
in American culture

8. Exploring Disability in the First Person

9. disability life writing
Art Spiegelman,
Maus

10. I felt ridiculous and defensive. On one hand,the man was urinating,and as
inappropriate and disgusting as that was, it was not physically harmful. ShouldI
screamrightnow?I wondered. Wouldthatbeappropriate, orwouldIbe
unnecessarilycausingascene? I imagined oneof myneighbors coming outside and
asking what the commotion was, andhaving to say that a manhad peed. On the
other hand, knowingthat people with disabilities face a higherrisk of sexual assault
thanmanyothergroups, I said a silent prayerto myself and thought, Ifthis manis
willingto takeouthisprivateparts andurinateinfrontofastranger,whatelseis he
willingto do?I’malreadyataphysicaldisadvantage. Ican’taffordtonotbeprepared
ifhetriesanythingelse. I knewI had to beprepared to fight or somehow get off of
that bus.
On NYC’s Paratransit, Fighting for Safety, Respect, and
Human Dignity
An incident on lawyer Britney Wilson’s ride home from work exposes her vulnerabilities as a Black
disabled woman.

11. Jjjjjerome Ellis,
“Loops of Retreat”
figuring “crip time”

12. “I refuse to hide
my body because
it might make a
woman-phobic
worldmore
comfortable.”
Audre Lorde,The
Cancer Journals

13. theorizing
disability
disability theory helps us think about disability with more depth &
complexity, helping us move past common tropes and stereotypes,
“fictions” of disability

14. theorizing disability
 Thomas Couser, "Disability, Life Narrative, and Representation":
“Disability autobiography should be seen ... not as spontaneous ‘self-
expression’ but as a response—indeed, a retort—to the traditional
misrepresentation of disability in Western culture” (Couser 604).
 Nancy Mairs, “On Being a Cripple”: “People—crippled or not—wince
at the word ‘cripple,’ as they do not at the words ‘handicapped’or
‘disabled.’ Perhaps I want them to wince” (Mairs 268).

15. theorizing disability
 Eli Clare, “Resisting Shame”: “How do we move through hatred,
disgust, numbness toward comfort and love, all the while
acknowledging body dissonance and dysphoria as real, sometimes
overwhelming, forces? Let’s lean towards places where we name our
bodily differences, even through our ambivalence, grief, and longing,
in ways that don’t invite and encourage shame.”
 Alison Kafer, “Time for Disability Studies and a Future for Crips”: “To
put it bluntly, I, we, need to imagine crip futures because disabled
people are continually being written out of the future, rendered as
the sign of the future no one wants.”

16. theorizing disability
 Alex Haagaard, “Notes on Temporal Inaccessibility”: “When you have
so few hours in a day, you end up in a state of perpetual temporal
debt. You are never ahead of schedule or even just keeping on top of
things. You are constantly playing catch-up. And then a flare hits, and
you’re plunged even further into debt.”
 Anna Mollow, “Disability Studies Gets Fat”: “Why should disability
scholars care about fat? Because the modes by which fat people are
oppressed are indistinguishable from ableism: architectural barriers,
discrimination, pathologization, pity, and staring are common social
responses to both fatness and disability” (Mollow 200).

18. “The Evening and the
Morning and the Night,”
1987
Lynn Mortimer, narrator
Alan Chi, Lynn’s fiancé
Beatrice Alcantara, Doctor at Dilg
Naomi, Alan’s mother

19. CUSTODIAL CARE
BUTLER’S STORY EVOKES A
LONG, DARK CHAPTER IN
DISABILITY HISTORY,THE
INSTITUTIONALIZATION OR
WAREHOUSING OF DISABLED
PEOPLE

20. The Persistent
Problem of
VIOLENCE
While Butler’s story compels the
reader to think critically about
highly stigmatized forms of
disability, complicating human
experiences that are often
depicted as merely horrible,
she also takes care not to
SANITIZE the fear and danger
associated with this
experience.
The DGD person is not neutralized
through therapeutic
intervention, but continues to
be understood as a threat to
self and others.
Page 490

21. Kill or Cure
■ Lenny is portrayed as
“innocent” but also …
■ Sexuality out of control
■ Violence out of control
■ Inevitably needs to be
“neutralized”
■ Story implicitly justifies murder
of intellectually disabled people

22. Buck v. Bell, 1927, authorizes
nonconsensual sterilization
for “feebleminded” people
from the Encyclopedia of American Disability History

23. How Nazis tested
genocidal techniques
on disabled children
Kenny Fries, The NewYorkTimes

24. NARRATIVE UNFOLDS
THROUGH A
SEQUENCE OF
INTERCONNECTED
MONOLOGUES

25. characters
• Yessenia Lopez
• Joanne Madsen
• Ricky Hernandez
• Michelle Volkman
• Teddy Dobbs
• Mía Oviedo
• Jimmie Kendrick

26. PLOT:
background
• Joanne gets a job at ILLC
• Pierre persistently mistreated
• Ricky & Joanne fall in love
• Mia sexually assaulted repeatedly
• Yessie changes roommates, has an outing with
Jimmie
• Michelle slowly realizes Whitney Palm is
predatory
• Teddy worries about turning 22, being moved
away from friends and family

27. NURSING
HOMES
PROFIT
FROM
EXPLOITATION
OF DISABLED
CLIENTS

28. Ken Kesey published One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1962
• Set in an Oregon State mental hospital
• Focused on the roles of Randle Patrick McMurphy
and “Chief” Bromden
• Story shows how people who refuse to adapt to
standard social conventions—people who don’t “fit
in”—are locked up and forced into conformity

29. Grounded in 1960s antipsychiatry
movement
• The antipsychiatry movement was motivated by
anger at the perceived arbitrariness of psychiatric
diagnostic practice as well as outrage at the
apparent inhumanity of certain treatments, such
as electroconvulsive therapy and long-term
involuntary hospitalization (2). Specific parts of the
critique propelled reform, including rapid
deinstitutionalization and attempts to improve the
codification and reliability of psychiatric categories
and diagnostic practices embodied in DSM-III and
standardized clinical interviews.

30. key moments
Mac arrives
9:00
Mac’s
evaluation
12:22
Mac cultivates
Bromden
24:28
The World
Series
48:30
The escape
55:00-1:08
“You’re not
crazy …”
1:13
Bromden
speaks
1:25:07
Mac chokes
Nurse Ratched
2:03:11
Mac’s death
2:07:25

31. In Ken Kesey’s BOOK,
Bromden is the NARRATOR
 That means that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest is HIS story, tells what happens to
McMurphy but from Bromden’s point of view.
 The narrative includes many surreal scenes
where the reader is not sure if Bromden is
hallucinating, or, overmedicated, or, if he’s
experiencing an alternate reality.
 “… a whole wall slides up, reveals a huge room
of endless machines stretching clear out of
sight, swarming with sweating, shirtless men
…”
 The reader is invited to understand the story
from Bromden's perspective, to respect and
try to understand his way of seeing things.

32. Documentary film
• Nonfiction film, grounded in real life, facts
• Like a video essay
• Still has a story to tell
• Uses music and pictures to establish mood,
feeling
• Sequence and juxtaposition used to
influence viewer

33. Crip Camp
tells the story
of Camp
Jened as an
ACTIVIST
TRAINING
GROUND

37. Please stay in touch!
Julia Miele Rodas
julia.rodas@bcc.cuny.edu