Crip Poetics and Disability Justice
Course Description
Summary
In this advanced 2-credit course, we will read contemporary poetry by Deaf, disabled, sick, and neurodivergent writers as well as works of crip theory. From the early years of the disability justice movement, poetry has been an important art form used to testify, agitate, build community, and inspire people to resist ableism. Some of the poets writing under the banner of disability also engage what some have called a crip poetics: an approach to craft that is shaped by disability as both lived experience and radical politics. What do crip poetics and the fight for disability justice have to do with each other? What approaches have poets taken to imagining a world of radical collective care, in which disabled bodyminds are valued and loved? And how do disability literature and politics intersect with questions of racial justice, queer/trans liberation, and other movements?
Following a brief overview of some writers and thinkers who have shaped the contemporary disability justice movement, we will read poems by North American poets who engage closely with disability. Readings may include works by Eli Clare, Aurora Levins Morales, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Meg Day, Kay Ulanday Barett, Noa Michaela Fields, Joanna Hevda, and Lauren Russell. Poems will be framed and supplemented by essays in disability studies. Students will write weekly responses, lead presentations, and submit a critical or creative final project. We will also experiment with what it might mean to try to create an accessible classroom community which centers care as a collective responsibility.
Learning Outcomes
- Begin exploring the field of disability/crip poetry, including the range of concerns and craft approaches disabled writers have taken in their work
- Become familiar with some key concepts in disability studies and allow them to inform our reading and writing practices
- Practice reading literature through the lens of disability justice and crip theory, exploring how authors put these concepts into practice
- Practice close-reading poems, analyzing their formal elements and articulating the effects of particular craft choices on the page
Prerequisites
Previous coursework in literature and/or disability studies is required. If you are interested in taking this class, please submit a writing sample via this form: https://forms.gle/AK5kHb2CVivHEsdw8, along with a 1-paragraph description of why you are interested and a list of some relevant courses you have taken, including the level (2000 or 4000). If the immediate relevance isn’t apparent from the course title, you may want to add a short explanation.
Please contact the faculty member : frannychoi@bennington.edu
Corequisites
Students in 4000-level Literature classes are required to attend all Literature Evenings and Poetry at Bennington readings this term, commonly held at 7pm on most Wednesday evenings.
Cross List
- Society, Culture, & Thought