This Week's Work: Oct. 17 - Oct. 24

Sun. 10/19:

Note: No Sunday post for Kristin’s class

Mon. 10/20:

(ENGL) 5 p.m.: make a webby post of your initial reactions to Adichie's novel:
What interests (grabs/puzzles/troubles) you? What would you like us to talk about?

(ICPR) NO CLASS -- but sometime over the course of the week I'd like you to read these pieces that put disability in conversation with other identity categories.

Alison Kafer, "Time for Disability Studies and a Future for Crips," from Feminist, Queer, Crip (pdf) 

"What would it mean to explore disability in time or to articulate "crip time"?

Robert McCruer "Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence" in DSR

"The system of compulsory able-bodiedness that produces disability is thoroughly interwoven with the system of compulsory heterosexuality that produces queerness"

Douglas C. Baynton,"Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History" in DSR

"Disability was a significant factor in the three great citizenship debates of the nineteenth and early twentieth centures: women's suffrage, African American freedom and civil rights, and the restriction of immigration. When categories of citizenship were questioned, challenged, and disrupted, disability was called on to clarify and define who deserved, and who was deservedly excluded from, citizenship."

Ellen Samuels, "My Body, My Closet: Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming Out" in DSR

"I frame a discussion not only of analogies between queerness and disability but of the specifics of coming out in each context as a person whose bodily appearance does not immediately signal one's own sense of identity."

Tues, 10/21:

(ENGL) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. "We should all be feminists." TEDxEuston, April 29, 2013.

Beyonce (sampling Adichie), Flawless.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chapters 1-10. Americanah (New York: Knopf, 2013). pp. 1-115.

(SOWK) Crosnor, R. & Elder, G.H. (2002) Successful adaptation in the later years: A life course approach to aging.  Social Psychology Quarterly 65(4): 309-328

Erikson's 1959 Identity and the life cycle

Nandan, M. (2005). Adaptation to American culture: Voices of Asian Indian immigrants. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 44(3/4): 175-203

Rooks, R.N. & Whitfield, K.E. (2004).  Health disparities among older African-Americans: Past, present, and future perspectives. In Closing the Gap: Improving the Health of Minority Elders in the New Millenium.  Keith E. Whitfield (Ed.)   Washington, D.C.: The Gerontological Society of America

Silverstone, B. (2005) Social work with the older people of tomorrow: Restoring the person in situation.  Families in Society, 86(3): 309-319.

 Wed. 10/22: 

(ICPR) 2:30-4, in Chase Auditorium @ HC: Anne Balay,
"Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers"

Thurs. 10/23: 

(ENGL) Americanah, Chapters 11-23 (to p. 237)

Fri. 10/24:

(ALL CLASSES) 7:30 p.m.: Monsoon Bissell and Benaifer Bhadha, "Two Woman Talking.” Goodhart Music Room.

(ICPR) Post on Serendip by Sunday, Oct. 26 at 5 PM: (You may want to post your comment Friday Oct. 24 since you'll be busy over the weekend with "Two Women Talking.") 

Choose one of these essays and sum up one of its main arguments. You can quote from the essay, but I want you to be familiar enough with the argument that you can explain it primarily in your own words. Then add a webby comment at least a paragraph long that clarifies, supports, complexifies, challenges, or otherwise responds to the argument you've summarized. You may also choose more than one essay and summarize/respond to related arguments.