Disability Rhetoric

I’m working on writing a paper on accessibility in Chemistry labs. It was a broader topic, but I decided to narrow it down to my discipline because a general overview of disability and science is too broad, but hopefully a look into the specific branch of chemistry, and more specifically on Chemistry labs, that I might be able to learn something interesting. Here’s what I’ve got so far, which isn’t very much and definitely not complete, but it’s something.

Introduction

People with disabilities have been a long part of the scientific discourse and discovery for centuries. John Dalton (1766-1844), who was colorblind, was one of the first people to scientifically study colorblindness and it’s causes, as well as being an influential chemist, physicist, and geologist. Charles Steinmetz, a mathematician, and physicist, had Kyphosis, a condition that made him look according to the Smithsonian, “four feet tall, his body contorted by a hump in his back and a crooked gait, and his stunted torso gave the illusion that his head, hands and feet were too big.” He was the first to describe the law of hysteresis, which was influential in the development of alternating- and direct-electrical current technology (AC and DC). And yet, perhaps the only disabled scientist you probably know is Stephen Hawking.

I was brought into this discussion with an essay presented in the book “Disability Visibility” written by Wanda Diaz-Merced titled “How a Blind Astronomer Found a Way to Hear the Stars” (the essay was originally presented as a Ted talk, an astronomer who developed blindness during her college studies, and found a way to translate graphical data to sound, a process called sonification.  

1. A look around the narratives presented by American Chemical Society
   1. Krystal Vasquez, “Excluded from the Lab”
      1. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/27/1000869161/disabled-scientists-are-often-excluded-from-the-lab
      1. Krystal Vasquez does talk about access in conferences, which is a good tie in with Margaret Price’s “The Construction of Disability in Conference Policy
   1. Annemarie Ross
      1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpLzkDdulw
      1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hni7BxQM7c8
2. A look at the guidelines presented by the ACS
3. Perhaps a look into the chemistry labs and how they make their labs accessible. (Field Trip! This could fun!) See how Western complies with these guidelines.
   • Here’s some picks of the disability amenities presented in the lab that I work in: