Unit information: From Freaks to Superhumans: Disability in the Modern World in 2020/21

Unit name	From Freaks to Superhumans: Disability in the Modern World
Unit code	HIST30109
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Andy Flack
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

Why do we need another Other? In a recent article, sight-impaired historian Cathy Kudlick made a compelling argument for the inclusion of disability and disabled people in the histories that we write. She is right on the money: more than a billion people on the planet today are affected by disability. If we omit them from our histories, we fundamentally misrepresent the realities of the past. Disabilities, from mental illness to visual impairment, and from learning difficulties to physical impairment have important histories that need to move from the margins to the mainstream of historical understanding.

This unit introduces students to the burgeoning field of nineteenth- and twentieth-century disability history, and incorporates key historical contexts including : ‘freaks’ and freakshows, from the so-called Elephant Man to Tom Thumb; eugenics, and the consequences of this ideology on the lives of people with disabilities (including Operation T4); intersectionality and the importance of thinking across disability, gender and ethnic identities; disability activism and the emergence of an organised voice of protest; education, employment and discrimination; the imagination of the ‘superfreak’, from Daredevil to the X-Men.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key issues in disability history;

2. Apply an understanding of key approaches in disability history to primary source analysis;

3. Discriminate between and deploy key historical and contemporary concepts, including ‘ability’, ‘disability, ‘impairment’, and ‘normalcy’;

4. Identify and present pertinent evidence to develop a cogent argument;

5. Reflect critically and sensitively on the historical roots of contemporary images of disability.

Teaching Information

3 hours of seminar (2+1) per week

Assessment Information

One 3500-word summative essay (50%): (ILOs 1-5)

One 2-hour examination (50%): (ILOs 1, 3-5)

Reading and References

1. David M. Turner and Daniel Blackie, Disability in the Industrial Revolution: Physical impairment in British coalmining, 1780-1880 (Manchester, 2018).
2. Leonard J. Davis, The Disability Studies Reader (London, 2015)
3. Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, The New Disability History (New York, 2001)
4. Catherine J. Kudlick, ‘Disability History: Why we need another “Other”’, American Historical Review, 108.3 (2003)
5. Kim E. Nielson, A Disability History of the United States (Boston. 2013)