About the Minor

Disability Studies is not the study of disabilities. It is a broad interdisciplinary field grounded in the rich perspectives, histories, and cultures of people with disabilities. Students in the Disability Studies minor will have wide exposure to both the lived experiences of disability, past and present, and to the unstable cultural norms that have traditionally stigmatized disability. The minor explores valuable varieties of human embodiment and mindedness; it also asks central questions about what counts as “normal,” and who gets to say why. The DS minor is designed for students interested in expansive intellectual, political, and artistic approaches to disability.

  • For students wishing to think creatively and critically about the world they’re building through arts & architecture, medicine, law, IT, or engineering, the Disability Studies minor offers a valuable reorientation to the biases of built environment, models of “health,” civil rights, and new directions in technological augmentation and accommodation.
  • For students majoring in the humanities (e.g. English, history, philosophy, political science, foreign language study), Disability Studies offers important new dimensions and challenges to traditional accounts of human value and political agency.
  • For students majoring in fields related to human health and services (e.g. nursing, speech and communication disorders, psychology, bio-behavioral health, special education, rehabilitation services), a Disability Studies minor provides relevant interdisciplinary links that broaden the understanding of the lived experience of disability beyond clinical or administrative realms.
  • For students with personal, familial, or professional experiences of disability, the minor provides an academic grounding and community for disability advocacy and disability culture.

The Disability Studies minor consists of 18 credits:

Three required courses (9 credits):

  • RHS 100: “Introduction to Disability Culture”
  • ENGL 228: “Introduction to Disability Studies in the Humanities”
  • ENGL 496: a three-credit independent study capstone course to be directed by a faculty member of your choice.

Three elective courses (9 credits), which will be selected from an interdepartmental menu in consultation with Professor Janet Lyon, faculty director of the minor. Examples of courses you may consider in consultation include, but are not limited to, the following:

CSD 269: Deaf Culture

CSD 218: American Sign Language

CSD 318: American Sign Language II

HIST 103: The History of Madness, Mental Illness, and Psychiatry

RPTM 277: Inclusive Leisure Services

RHS 420/SPLED 420, “Culture and Disability: Study Abroad in Ireland”