Week Two Reading

After reading through the first chapter of Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity, I realized that was the first time I came across the description of disability studies. Simi Linton claims that disability studies challenges the notion that disability is primarily a medical category. To be frank, I’ve never put much thought into the academic field of disability studies and I must admit that my understanding of disabilities has only be centered around the medical aspects. Linton goes on to expose a major flaw in the liberal arts curriculum with respects to the study of disability, demanding that disability studies be reframed around a primarily social and political significance. I would love during our next class to talk more in depth about disability studies and how Linton examines the current structuring of disability studies in liberal arts curriculum.

My favorite reading from last the first week was Sight Unseen, by Georgina Kleege. During chapter 1 of the book, Kleege gives both her view on the world and the world’s view on blindness. A line that really stuck with me after reading was, “The belief that human experience, both physical and mental is essentially visual, and that any other type of experience is necessarily second rate, leads to the conclusion that not to see is not to experience, not to live, not to be.” (page 30) Kleege piece is extremely powerful to me because she provides for those who are sighted a glimpse into what it’s like be perceived as blind. I would like to further discuss Sight Unseen and hear from my classmates what they enjoyed most about the passage.