So my project is going pretty well. I decided on my topic and I decided to write more of an essay/informational piece on disability as a consequence of war. I decided to add another creative non-fiction essay on the topic as well and the experience/terror that comes with children being harmed by war.
Something I’m struggling with is the creative essay. I want to put pieces of my own life into it as well as my reaction and feelings towards children disabled by war. It’s hard to put the information along with emotion in an effective yet creative way. The informational part of the project is a lot easier, it’s just interpreting and analyzing a bunch of research. I’m trying to think of it in terms of an analysis response through the lens of a student and the second is an emotional response as a Palestinian youth. I feel like I am overthinking it a little too much, it could also just be the stress part. I feel like it’s hard to gage how long a paper is enough or how much information is enough. I don’t like not having enough parameters and at the same time I love having so much creative freedom. I know it’s all going to turn out great and how I want it too, I’m just stressed about it.
My project is a visual and touch focused exploration of how identity, society and Masquerade interact. My concept is a three-layered decorative mask, in which each layer addresses an aspect of a person’s identity and how they present this layer. As planned, currently, only one mask layer out of three is constructed and I am prepping to finish the others in the next couple of days. My main concern is the size of the masks and the dialog. I started constructing the mask with the first layer to ensure I had the room to work on details and to accurately estimate the size of the whole mask. However, the first layer ended up taller than I expected meaning all the layers will be larger than I originally planned. This will make finding the appropriate container more difficult.
As for the dialogs, I am nervous to write them. I tend to not write creatively well, and the dialogs will require some creative writing. The dialogs should lend themselves well to the audio requirements of the major project, so I will not abandon them, something I had started to consider. Honestly, this project does not feel like a class project, but more like something I decided to make for my own enjoyment. My main take away from this project is “I should do things like this more often”. Admittedly, I chose a project that heavily involves my main hobbies so any work I do on the project is incredibly enjoyable. I am hoping to keep this pace up, so I only have the finishing details left to add after the upcoming fall break.
Photos of the first layer:
I am waiting to add colors until the other layers are completed.
In this exploration, I want to discover the different types of relationships that exist in the disability community and how they intertwine, what they mean, and how they are misunderstood/misrepresented. With that, it will touch on distinct subjects that can lead to common themes and easily interact with terms or concepts we’ve already tackled in class previously. What happens when we challenge standard conceptions of romance, sexuality, and friendship in disability circles and let individuals tell their stories?
Interactive slideshow presentation with music and other media (potentially short clips and images) as well as questions for the intended audience (which is anyone really, most likely those ignorant to disability culture)
Use Loom or Canva, some program friendly with creative presentations and media being implemented
For the media specifically I’ll most likely incorporate a different type every slide or every other slide. Citations will be provided on the slide or at the very end of the presentation.
It will be broken into different sections: Romantic, Platonic/Friendships, Family, Sexual/Sexuality (casual relationships). I intend to cover personal narratives I find to provide info from folks lived experiences rather than just data type analysis. Each section will most likely be able to point to either one text we’ve read or a new piece that others can take from my presentation.
There shouldn’t be a clear, concrete conclusion for this but rather main points and themes that educate the audience while showing my own learning process too. I want to provide interesting resources that someone can go to afterwards to learn more and interact with themselves.
Week 11/15: Add more citations and details to the skeleton of the outline. Solidify the order of what is going where and why. Make sentences that can be changed/altered later on if need be. Mainly gather the big ideas w/o media for now.
Week11/22: Make it less of an outline, have ideally half of slides completed and revised. Finalize and write down all citations in order. Start gathering all the media I will need and know where it is going. Ask Andrew any questions I have before/after class. Decide if there are issues so far and what they are.
Week 11/29: Revise all my work so far. Invite Andrew to look at what I gathered so far, how I placed everything in terms of making sense but also aesthetic. Check if the media works. Think of questions that are broad enough to have anyone answer with the level of knowledge they might have and gain from my presentation. Think of what pieces from class connect to each section in a meaningful, innovative way.
Week 12/1: Should be completed with everything. Show peers, friends, and Andrew once more for the final time before turn-in day.
How long should this be slides and minutes wise with my format? Is there any very specific focus I might want to look at that no student has done before? How much media is too much?
Citations:
Sex and Disability by Robert McRuer
Sexual Healing: Inside the World of Medically Assisted Sex by Vice
https://www.easterseals.com/who-we-are/history/ Easterseals Blog
Arntzen in Action: Producing and Produced by Ableism
Central question
How is Arntzen Hall produced by and producing ableism and disability itself?
Product design
I plan on designing a zine/comic book personifying Arntzen Hall and illustrating a learning experience regarding ableist spaces.I believe visual representation of concepts as heady as “rhetoric of space” are helpful for comprehension.
Lay out a possible structure. If you’re making a zine, what might go in it? Where will you go for your images? How might it be broken up?
As attached below, I have drawn up a rough draft of the zine, breaking it up into 8 pages. Each page will include an illustration or design of sort, educational information that I pull from class/readings, and a bit of a storyline (the building learning more about ableism of space).
Page 1: Title Page – Image of Arntzen Hall
Page 2: Intro to Arntzen, rhetorical space, and disability studies
Page 3: Outline of what will be included
Page 4: Physical space
Page 5: Intellectual space
Page 6: Some other space (still working on it, hopefully will come from the reading
Page 7: Further outlining of what Arntzen learned
Page 8: Sources
If you have more than one idea, fully invest in at least one here, rather than only saying a few things about each of them.
Essentially I have one key idea, but I am breaking it up into 3 sub-ideas that provide further detail.
Production plan How will you go about creating this product? What are the steps you have in mind? The big dates to keep in mind:
I will sketch and doodle ideas in my free time (as far as the design aspect goes).
Week Nov. 1: Complete project proposal Sign up for meeting with Andrew
Week Nov. 8: Read through chosen readings (listed below) and pull out information Compile notes/readings from class that pertain Complete data collection before meeting with Andrew on Nov. 11 Nov. 11: I will meet with you with the information I have found and maybe we can go over how I can best summarize/find what’s most important to include.
Week Nov. 15: Visit Arntzen Hall and do some (first hand) research on the space Summarize findings and prepare written responses Write-up of my research (what I found in short essay format)
Week Nov. 22: My work-in-progress will include a full rough draft of the zine and a short essay write-up of my findings. All design aspects will be present, but not refined.
Week Nov. 29 – Dec. 6: Finishing touches on zine and final edits on paper and bibliography Dec. 8: Due date
Consultation
You already helped me find readings. In our meeting (early on), I would like to discuss what information should be included in the zine (based on what I have found) and how the storyline should be set up (so that I can include as much information as possible without overdoing the pages). I’m hoping you will guide me to include any forgotten details and fill in the missing parts of the zine. Ask me specific questions of things you want to know about the assignment or information you want me to fill in about particular topics. I might be able to answer them or not, depending on how specialist your topic is
I hope to talk with you about the rhetoric of space and how I can tell it like a story. I have a few questions on atmospheric space and the structures of education specifically in the social sciences at Western.
Citations Give three possible readings you might reference in your project in some way. No need to say anything about them now.
The Question of Access: Disability, Space, Meaning
Campbell gives a detailed account of how the term “ability” came to be what we now know it as today. It seemed to start as a measurement of what a person was able to do, and usually was legally used to benefit men who owned property. To not be able was to be disabled, and to have less value socially. This disabled term was applied to pretty much everyone other than property owning men. The term would only really be applied directly to people in the late 14th century, where people would be identified as able or disabled. Ability was focused much more on “perfectionability”. Philosophy and science around this time was really focused on the contemplation of what made us human. In the next 200 years or so, we see the expansion of the global market, where ability is now seen as how much a person is able to work, how efficient is the human body and how it could be used for profit. In the 1980’s, we see ability and disability being connected to each other even more, mostly in a negative way. With the development of modern medicine and technology, the definition of ablebodidness grows narrower and narrower, especially as the idea of the able body becomes more compulsory and unattainable (its pretty cool that we see McRuer here too). Campbell finished this off with explaining how the two main parts of ableism are the concept of the normative and the division of the perfected body and the “aberrant” or underdeveloped, the unhuman. She argues that the idea of ableism is important to look at in terms of disability, as well as other marginalized identities seeing as they often also face being categorized under the term “less human”.
Quotations:
“‘Ability’ in the Anglo-Norman world was a legal term tied to capacity to enter into contracts or inherent property” (Kumari Campbell 12).
“Throughout much of pre modern Western history, ability and able-bodiedness referred to a person’s role in the community rather than to a fixed condition”(Campbell 12).
(14th and 15th century) “‘Abled’ as an adjective, described a ‘capable, vigorous and thriving’ person or object”(Campbell 12).
“Key to a system of ableism are two elements: the concept of the normative (and the normal individual); and the enforcement of a divide between a ‘perfected’ or developed humanity and the aberrant, unthinkable, underdeveloped, and therefore not really human” (Campbell 13-14)
Analysis:
When I first read Campbell’s analysis of what able bodiedness is today, where hyperproductivity, physical and mental perfection and constant availability are key factors of the “abled body”, I couldn’t help but think of machines. I found it really ironic when Campbell explained how often the humanity of disabled people would be debated, when meanwhile the definition of what makes an able bodied person was not of a person, but of a profit, or dollar sign; a living factory. The movement towards nondisabled people being valuable only in their ability to work and never fail to come in to work really disturbs me, it makes me think a lot too about universal healthcare and welfare and how retirement works as well. I think that the mentality behind a body being made for labor and hyperproductivity is really damaging to society as a whole, our very views of bodies are being warped and given values based on what they are able to provide labor-wise. It just feels so wrong. Bodies are a rhetoric, they embody rhetoric, they give us the opportunity to experience the world around us. They are vessels for our beings that allow us to perceive the world around us and to be perceived by others, they’re tools for interaction, not tools for someone else to use, for someone else to pass judgement and value upon. This sort of mindset is not only dehumanizing but extremely damaging to humanity as a whole. Not everyone’s bodies are the same, not everyone experiences the world in the same way, so saying disabled bodies are less valuable because they are visibly different has been and will continue to chip away at our perceptions of others.
I found it really fascinating to see how the term “abled” has changed throughout history. Campbell does a wonderful job at showing both negative and positive definitions of disability throughout the ages, and you could really see how our present day perception of ability and disability has come from. One thing that really stood out to me was how originally ability was not always in reference to a person, let alone a person’s body. I think that this is where the term started and to now see where it has wound up is really daunting, I hope to learn more in this class about how terminology evolved throughout the ages both within general society and academic circles of the past, and to see how these changes have influenced our present.
The common American student has very little exposure to disability studies in public education. This lack of curriculum is unacceptable and narrows the minds of young folks across the country. Many of those who do know about disability studies are living it first-hand. Imagine what it’s like as a student who never sees their own experience taught about in the classroom; how isolating that would be. There are dozens of methods that can be used to accurately portray disability studies, but all come from a place that centers disabled voices. Crip Camp is a documentary produced by a disabled man about disabled people. It is the perfect film to introduce students to the world of disability.
Crip Camp retells disability through the lens of a revolution—the revolution of access. What begins with a couple of disabled kids at summer camp (Camp Jened), leads to a national headline celebrating the triumph of a 28-day sit-in in a Berkeley Federal Health, Education, and Welfare building. The documentary tells the story of how those kids went from singing songs with a bunch of hippies, to sleeping on federal grounds in protest of their federally sanctioned mistreatment in the US.
Camp Jened, where it all started, was a revolutionary space. It was a crip space that allowed campers to be fully themselves. Keywords for Disability Studies defines “access” as “the power, opportunity, permission, or right to come near or into contact with someone or something”. Camp Jened was accessible. It provided power, opportunity, permission, and the right for the campers to be unapologetically themselves; and that is why it is revolutionary. This disability revolution was not because of pity for non-disabled people, but rather, because of impassioned, driven, and brilliant disabled folks themselves. Crip Camp is highly relatable, not just for disabled folks, but for any high schooler looking to make a difference.
Crip Camp provides a deviant perspective of disability. It portrays disabled kids and adults in a way that is anti-normative. It successfully tells a story of disabled high schoolers as they are (which again, is revolutionary). This exposure is essential for high schoolers, as mainstream media often portrays disabled folks as inspirationporn or pity parties. The documentary accurately depicts the campers at Jened in a way that humanizes them, much unlike how they were treated outside the camp. It features segments of their patience, sexual exploration, messing up, desire for popularity, and daily needs through a disability studies lens.
Accessibility, like that within Camp Janed (and that portrayed throughout the entirety of Crip Camp), is worth fighting for. The advocates in this film bring the audience on their journey of fighting. The revolution is not going to be handed over, Crip Camp tells a story of fighting for justice in a country that claims freedom. Several events are included in the documentary, including the month-long sit-in, the “capital crawl” in demand for ADA, and countless other protests; these events are historic markers to progress in our country. They are hopeful, encouraging, and ideally leave activists hungry for even more! Crip Camp pushes the limits; the limits of spaces, of people, of government. And I push you to use it in your classroom.
The documentary Crip Camp features many disability rights activists who began their experience of being in a disabled community at the summer camp called Camp Jened, in New York. At this camp, people of all disabilities were welcome, and everyone was encouraged to participate in activities like baseball, music, and swimming regardless of their disability because the counselors were happy to provide any aid they wanted or needed. The narrator describes how many of the teenagers who went to camp Jened were incredibly isolated in their lives at home because where they lived didn’t have accessible schooling, nor transportation, and so many were unable to thrive in their communities. A central feature of Camp Jened was the emphasis on hearing everyone’s thoughts in discussions as well as full validation of the members experiences with their disabilities and how the outside world treated them. One of the people who went to the camp, Nancy Rosenblum, had a disability that impacted her speech, and all of the other people took great care to try to understand what she had to say, because no matter what, her voice and presence was valuable to the collective.
Once many of the members grew up and left Camp Jened, they began activist work together in order to create accessibility in the places they lived. One of the most prominent disability rights activists to come out of Camp Jened was Judith Heumann. She fought for “the reframing “disability” as a social and political, rather than simply a medical and rehabilitative, problem; the shift in priorities from correcting individuals to reforming society; the assertion that the necessary means for social participation and integration, whether devices or services or access and accommodations, should be enforceable civil rights rather than dispensations of charity” (Nepveax, 21). Heumann spoke to lawmakers in New York, California, Washington DC, and likely other states advocating for the Disability Integration Act to be enforced to end institutional biases. While working as one of the prominent leaders of the Disability Rights Movement she organized building takeovers and shocking demonstrations. The Activism chapter of Keywords for Disability states that, “Although much social and policy advocacy now takes place online, street protests, disruptive occupations, and performance oriented street-theater remain crucial ways to draw attention to disability issues that might otherwise be rendered invisible” (Nepveax, 24). This statement describes perfectly the methods in which Heumann and other activists garnered media attention and brought awareness to the public.
This documentary was very moving to me because of the strength of the community that was built from a single space focused on access, equality, perseverance, and fun. I laughed along with the Camp Jened members when they had an outbreak of crabs and had to quarantine, and I had tears in my eyes when Judith Heumann bit back her own tears while speaking to lawmakers about the lack of access her and her community dealt with every time they tried to move through the world. I give Crip Camp a 4.5 out of five only because I wish they had gone into the creation and evolution of Camp Jened when it started in 1952 move in depth, because Judith Heumann and many of the other activists that came from the camp attended in the 1970’s after it had been running for nearly two decades. This film should definitely be shown and discussed in high schools, because it is a perfect representation of how small communities can impact the entire country. What started as a fun way for people with like experiences to form friendships and a sense of collective and personal identity, became an organization of intelligent, strong individuals who gained international acclaim for their work.
The film Crip Camp is a storytelling showpiece about the roots of disability rights and disability rights activists. While the documentary centers around the story of how the ADA came to be and activism in general, it offers an important theme of community and accessibility embedded in. We begin the film with a nostalgic 70s scene of campers at Camp Jened. Camp Jened is an all-inclusive camp for young teens with a disability. At the camp, the audience gets to see disability in a different light than usual as campers build friendships that stand the test of time as we see later on. As a student who never received education about disabilities or disability rights, this film struck a chord with me. I wish my high school had this built into the curriculum in some way. I believe it could fit really well into a history class and teach students to think deeper into human rights and politics.
After establishing a community in Camp Jened the film jumps to a different time in campers lives as they’ve grown up and find one another again. The story mainly includes three campers named Judith Heumann, Stephen Hoffman, and Larry Allison that retell their story and how they all became close friends from beginning of camp to later in life. Not only is history important in this film for the obvious reason of laws being passed, but there is first a history of relationships that allowed there to be protests pushing for legislation to be passed. At Camp Jened, it was clear the space the entire time was about helping one another out beyond just physically. To create an atmosphere as such is not a difficult feat, but it is difficult to keep it going outside those safe walls. Authors Susan Burch and Kim E. Nielsen emphasize a social-relational model of disability for historians to refer to in their chapter appropriately titled “History.” With this model disability can be seen as shaped by the environment the person is in (Burch, Nielsen, 96). That is to say that if a person with a disability is around a culture not only inclusive to others like themselves but also a culture that is open for them physically and socially then they will thrive. Unfortunately, America has not been successful with that goal and that is where protests began which ignited the ADA.
Coming from a small town with small minds, I can see how this might not always execute well when shown to high schoolers. The issue I believe just lies in the belief systems and how strong they are (always have been) surrounding disability. I will promise you that there will always be at least one or two students that will be open minded and that can change a classroom environment entirely. This film is going to be necessary for those environments. Another issue with rhetoric surrounding disability is the fact that most stories told about folks who are disabled are told by able-bodied people. The film can offer aspects of teaching that should and need to be acknowledged when discussing history such as psychological issues, sociological impacts, culture, and intersectionality. As Burch and Nielsen said, “Disability rights movements in all of their manifestations share central themes in history: struggle, citizenship, labor, power, violence, health, representation, and community.” (Burch, Nielsen, 97). In high school I believe it’s important to realize the power that groups create. If teens had more exposure to civil rights knowledge and more specifically how they came to be (like this film) I think it can be easier to see how they themselves can create change in the world when it’s needed.
Something big I personally took from this film is how the community helped shape every part of action that was taken. I could be wrong, but I feel like if one is almost thrust into the world of politics because it’s demanded it can be exhausting quickly. By that, I mean when your rights are at risk, you feel the need to act because no one else will. However, Judy Heumann our main leader of the protests, had community all the way back from camp helping her. In their adult life they still found one another taking care of each other mentally and physically to better the whole nation.
An examination on rhetoric and science implemented by disabled people, written in a somewhat formal style reminiscent of ACS writing standards for scientific papers, but not strictly conforming to the guidelines.
Questions:
What is the rhetoric of disability in science?
Popular examples:
Stephen Hawking – Physicist, motor neuron disease
Temple Grandin – Animal behaviorist, autistic
Solomon Lefschetz – Mathematician, lost both hands.
John Forbes Nash Jr. – Mathematician, mental illness (Beautiful Mind)
Albert Einstein – Physicist, believed to be autistic
Other examples
Wanda Diaz-Merced
Caroline M. Solomon
How has their disability been reflected in their scientific pursuits? (What disciplines do they go for? How does their disability affect how they see their field of interest?)
Pop. sci vs. Academia (science tinged with personal stories vs. strictly factual analysis)
“Disability history is inextricably entangled with all other topics of history.” – Susan burch and Kim E. Nielson.
What is the story behind the Americans with Disabilities Act? Very few people, I would say not many Americans, actually know how this act of legislation actually took place. This is disappointing, since the ADA is probably the greatest piece of American legislation ever passed since the civil rights movement. Now, offering a new narrative to the public is the 2020 film, “Crip Camp”, describing the lives and political activism of a group of disabled people who where influential in passing the ADA in 1990.
The film begins with the young disabled meeting each other at Camp Jened, the titular Crip Camp, one of the few camps at the time specifically designed for those with disabilities. The camp was started in 1971, and was influential in the formation of the early disability civil rights groups, fostering an independent spirit among the campers, encouraging them to be expressive, sexual, creative and happy and to seek a better life for themselves. The first half of the film describes the individual experiences of these campers, in particular, Judith “Judy” Heumann, Larry Allison, James LeBrecht, Denise Sherer Jacobson, and Stephen Hofmann, all of which offer their first hand accounts of the events that happen.
The second half of the film focuses on the civil rights groups and activities that these individuals became a part of as adults. Judy Heumann in particular became a pillar in the disability community, having helped found Disabled in Action and the Center for Independent Living. She was influential in spearheading some of the major disability protests about the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation act of 1973, organizing the sit in protest that took place between April 5 to May 4, 1977 at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. After that protest, she and the organizations she helped start continued to advocate for the rights of those with disabilities, and she became influential in the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
The film concludes by showing the remaining campers of Camp Jened meeting together at where it once stood, the camp having been closed since 2009. It’s a poignant and heartening ending to a film which documents the journey of a generation of disabled people. Such narratives are important, considering how history tends to remember the disabled, or rather not think of them, or worse- think of them as a nuisance and a pain. The film briefly covers this as it discusses this aspect of disability history when describing Willowbrook, an institution on Staten Island where many of New York’s disabled lived, and was notorious for being poorly staffed with a lack of food and supplies necessary for the care of the disabled – in one word, Hell. Campers from Willowbrook where said to have been practically stuffing their mouths with food because in Willowbrook they had been starving. Many of these disabled people who were institutionalized at Willowbrook would have no way to speak out about their situation or how difficult, dangerous, and horrible their lives where in such situations. It is important than to recognize when such people can speak out and tell their stories. Examples of this include the residents of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, who managed to speak about their experiences by making a monthly journal of poetry, editorials, essays, plays and art, in which they can talk about their lives, thoughts, and dreams. Such a tangible record of the lives of the disabled is rare, and we should appreciate the opportunities we have to enjoy them.
Already we are seeing the brave group from Camp Jened slowly vanish into obscurity, as many are dead or dying, and soon all we will have left of them are their stories. “We are all stories in the end.” As the 11th Doctor once told us. And we must remember; we must bear witness to those who have come before us, so that those who come after will have a brighter future. The work of these amazing people has given us all a brighter future and we must not squander it.
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” -Ephesians 5:15
