PHIL 137 - Disability, Community, and Advocacy

This course explores the philosophy, nature, history, and social dynamics of disability. This course will introduce students to the disability rights movement, the concept of “disability pride,” and aspects of disability culture. How we treat disabled individuals depends on our understandings and assumptions regarding the nature and value of disabilities. Students will learn how individuals with disabilities have had to actively campaign for civil rights and legal protections, and how that struggle continues to shape communities impacted by disabilities. Two interconnected foci of the course are (1) how individuals with disabilities have been regularly and systematically excluded from their communities, and (2) how the inclusion of individuals in a community is good for the community itself. The course thus involves critical reflection on what our practices reflect about our default understanding of community and how we should revise what community ought to be like.