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Disability Studies

  • DST 300 - Whose Lives Matter?
    Course DescriptionStudents are invited to explore how and why some lives have come to matter less than others, how this inequality is institutionalized in policies and practices of ableism, colonialism, racism, sexism and other forms of oppression, and how those marginalized have resisted this. The course will start from a disability standpoint as a way to think intersectionally about the various forms of oppression and domination, as well as resistance to them, with a focus on the Canadian context.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Liberal Studies:LL
  • DST 500 - A History of Madness
    Course DescriptionWhere do diverse concepts of "madness" come from? How have these ideas changed over time? How have "mad people" interpreted their own experiences? This course will be in the tradition of social history from "below". It will survey the social medical, political, economic, cultural and religious factors that have influenced interpretations of what it means to be "mad" from ancient time to the present.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Liberal Studies:UL
    Antirequisites:DST 504
  • DST 501 - Rethinking Disability
    Course DescriptionThis foundation course introduces the core ideas students will explore throughout their studies. It immerses students in a highly participatory and provocative encounter with history, social theory, politics, policy, art and culture seen through a disability lens. Course content is designed to reflect the experience of people with disabilities, highlighting the social roots and impact of discrimination, exclusion and marginalization as well as responses of resistance.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 502 - Disability and the State
    Course DescriptionThis course begins with students' day-to-day experience of "policy", moving towards deeper examination of the underlying values, interests and institutions that shape social and disability policy. Students are guided to make comparisons and connections, looking at historical responses to disability and at contemporary programs and services. Readings and online presentations explore what policy means, why it matters, and what processes and strategies are activated by people with disabilities to influence, shape and reform social policy.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
  • DST 503 - Current Topics in Disability I
    Course DescriptionThis course will provide students with an opportunity to engage in an in-depth examination of specialized and scholarly work within the disability studies field. Content will be chosen by the Instructor based on recent research and trends in the field.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 504 - Mad People's History
    Course DescriptionThis course will provide an overview of the history of madness from the point of view of people who were, and are, deemed "mad". The purpose of this course is to place the diverse perspectives of people diagnosed as mad, insane or mentally ill as being of central importance in the history of psychiatry, and to address the question: how madness has been viewed by mad people over the centuries.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Antirequisites:DST 500
  • DST 506 - Principles and Practices of Accessibility
    Course DescriptionThe Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) mandates development of enforceable accessibility standards for businesses and organizations to identify, remove and prevent barriers to accessibility. This course is for those seeking specialized knowledge of the AODA, accessibility issues and implementation. It covers understandings of disability, issues giving rise to the Act, disability activism and a critical analysis of the new accessibility standards for customer service, built environments, employment, information and communications and transportation.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 507 - Disability, Justice and Good Human Life
    Course DescriptionDisabled people's lives are shaped by powerful ideologies rooted in moral and political philosophy. Moving beyond medicalized evaluations, this course critically applies conceptions of justice, ethics, morality to issues such as disability discrimination, right-to-die, choice, autonomy, and assisted suicide. In these and other complex debates is the root question: "Do we own our own bodies?"
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
    Antirequisites:PHL 507
  • DST 508 - Cripping the Arts in Canada
    Course DescriptionThis course will explore disability arts in Canada. We examine how disability arts has contributed to and challenged the disability rights and other social movements. We position disability arts in a Canadian context and interrogate its emergence historically. We explore contemporary issues and debates within disability arts, such as the role that it continues to play in the disability rights movement, whether disability arts can be produced by non-disabled people, and emerging disability arts aesthetics.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Liberal Studies:UL
    Antirequisites:DST 509
  • DST 509 - Disability Arts and Culture
    Course DescriptionExploring disability arts, this course will think through how the inclusion of disability arts "crips" or productively disrupts, arts and culture in Canada. We will explore how disability arts contributes to the disability rights and justice movements as well as the many ways this sector is changing the way we fund the arts, create and experience art, and how disability arts and curatorial practices are giving rise to a new standard of artistic excellence.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Antirequisites:DST 508
  • DST 510 - Death and Everyday Life
    Course DescriptionExplore death as an undeniably pervasive way by which we organize everyday life. By examining artistic, media, historical, theoretical, empirical and activist material, take up questions regarding how life and death chances are distributed among different communities, demographics, and populations. Through encounters with ideas and concepts at the intersection of death and disability studies, reflect on how we may die as we live, with care, dignity, interdependence, and a sense of shared humanity.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 2 hrs. Tutorial 1 hr.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Liberal Studies:UL
  • DST 525 - Disability and Representation
    Course DescriptionThis course critically examines representations of embodied difference in mainstream and other media. With particular attention to disability, it queries images from the news, on television, film and the web as they are embedded in the systems of ableist power, privilege and marginalization. To study these images is to reveal their ideological underpinnings, and their intrinsic connection to other categories of identity including class, race, gender, and sexual orientation.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
  • DST 603 - Law and Disability
    Course DescriptionThis course is constructed around 'fact' situations, illustrative of real-life dilemmas faced by disabled people, their families, advocates and service providers. How to find and use the law will be explored as will the often competing issues of independence, dignity, personal and economic security. Students will analyze when the law may help or hinder, and how it may be changed.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
  • DST 604 - Current Topics in Disability II
    Course DescriptionThis course will provide students with a further opportunity to engage in an in-depth examination of specialized and scholarly work within the disability studies field. Content will be chosen by the Instructor based on recent research and trends in the field.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 605 - Sexuality, Desire and Disability
    Course DescriptionThis hybrid course introduces students to the topics of disability, desire and sexuality through a disability studies lens by examining the medicalized body as a site where normalcy is both enacted and resisted. Launching from key concepts of sexual culture and disability/crip consciousness, this course recognizes the political nature of both disability and sexuality, and posits that we can move both categories into the future as desirable sites to expand our notions of personhood.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Liberal Studies:UL
    Antirequisites:DST 604 - Topic 2 Disability, Desire, Sexuality
  • DST 613 - Strategies for Community Building
    Course DescriptionThis course addresses the importance of community building given the realities of social exclusion and the challenges represented by diversity in the current social, political and economic context in Canada. The starting point is the particular view of reality held by people with disabilities. Students are encouraged to analyze power, inequality and influence before building strategies for action, and to develop a personal ethical stance in which to ground community development practice.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
  • DST 614 - Community, Access and Technology
    Course DescriptionStudents are introduced to assistive technologies, their impact on people with disabilities, models of use, public policy and legislation (local, federal, international). In addition to online readings and exploratory assignments, students participate in online discussion forums and live weekly e-chats with leaders in the assistive technology field. The final project offers students an opportunity to explore a technology of interest in the context of addressing an unmet need or burning issue in their community.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 620 - Disability Studies in Education
    Course DescriptionThis course considers the ways in which ability and disability are constructed within educational spaces, both as a positive cultural identity and as a mechanism for exclusion and discrimination. The social order of schools and other community spaces are examined through interdisciplinary dialogue building from students’ experiences of ability/disability in community services. The course builds on a history of the inclusion movement, critical theory intersections, radical inclusive education, and emerging critical disability studies in education.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 630 - Mad Studies: Contemporary Perspectives
    Course DescriptionHow is the world a maddening place? How does racism, political violence, poverty, hetero-sexism and other oppressive experiences produce and shape "madness"? What are the ongoing resistances to ableist, biomedical, criminalizing and pathologizing psychiatric diagnoses which inform the lives and experiences of mad peoples? To explore and critically evaluate these questions, students will self-reflect, review articles, books, films, and documentaries, and dialogue with guest speakers.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • DST 725 - The Politics and Practice of Interventions
    Course DescriptionIn recent years, interventions directed at disabled people have been the subject of debate, controversy and resistance. This course explores these tensions by tracing various approaches to creating change in the lives of disabled people. Students will use sociological analysis, theories of disability/difference, autobiographical knowledge and consultation to critique examples of contemporary interventions and to explore potentially more positive alternatives.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
  • DST 727 - Leadership Practices for Changing Times
    Course DescriptionThis course looks at leadership theory and the challenges of leading in neo-liberal times. It touches on political discourse, public policy and the legislative process. It examines the problem of working across differences and complicates empowerment. Students will meet and talk with leaders from social movements. By the time students complete their assignments, they should be able to imagine themselves as leaders and be better able to assist disabled people in becoming leaders.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 or INT 902 or SWP 921
    Antirequisites:DST 726
  • DST 80A/B - Practicum in Disability Studies
    Course DescriptionOnly students who do not have the equivalent of two years of full-time related work/advocacy experience will be required to take this course. Students accepted into the program without this requirement may apply to be exempt from DST 80A/B if, during their course of studies, they have acquired sufficient work/advocacy experience. This experience will involve work in a community placement involving advocacy, support or community development with citizens with disabilities.
    Weekly Contact:Lab 21 hrs.
    GPA Weight:2.00
    Billing Units:3
    Count:2.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501
  • DST 88A/B - Research Methods
    Course DescriptionThis course will provide students with a basic understanding of social research and its relevance to disability studies. Students will acquire the knowledge and skills required to plan, conduct and critically analyse research. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods will be explored along with their use in transforming perceptions of disability. Issues of social location and the meaningful participation of people with disabilities in research are discussed.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:2.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:2.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501
  • DST 99A/B - Applied Community Project/Thesis
    Course DescriptionThis is the "capstone" course of the Disability Studies program. It provides students with the opportunity to engage in focussed scholarly and project work from a disability studies perspective. It must be taken after all other courses. The course will be individually structured for each student in collaboration with a faculty advisor. The orienting question will revolve around how social environments and structures shape the experience of people with disabilities.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:4.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:2.00
    Prerequisites:DST 501 and DST 88A/B