APS 432 Disability and Society

This concise, integrated introduction to the complex relationship between disability and the media offers a roadmap to the key areas of participation, access and representation. Bringing together international theoretical work and research on disability, with analysis and examples across a diverse range of media forms - from radio, to news, popular television and new digital technologies - this unique text explores the potential for establishing a more diverse, rich and just media. Providing an approachable but critical introduction to the field, Katie Ellis and Gerard Goggin show how disability - like the closely connected areas of race and gender - is a pervasive issue in how the media represent society.

In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, municipallaws targeting "unsightly beggars" sprang up in cities across America. Seeming to criminalize disability and thus offering a visceral example of discrimination, these "ugly laws" have become a sort of shorthand for oppression in disability studies, law, and the arts. In this watershed study of the ugly laws, Susan M. Schweik uncovers the murky history behind the laws, situating the varied legislation in its historical context and exploring in detail what the laws meant.

Written by participants and first-rate social scientists in the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research, On the Stigma of Mental Illness: Implications for Research and Social Change explores the causes and ramifications of mental illness stigma, as well as the possible means to eliminate it. The book translates basic behavioral research, especially from social psychology, to an issue of prime importance to clinical psychology. While laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act have decreased the impact of discrimination, contact between those with mental illness and those without may be one of the most effective ways to diminish stigma.

This comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection, examines disability from a theoretical perspective, challenging views of disability that dominate mainstream thinking. Throughout, social theories of disability intersect with ideas associated with sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class and nation.

Presenting thirteen essays, editors James C. Wilson and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson unite the fields of disability studies and rhetoric to examine connections between disability, education, language, and cultural practices. The contributors span a range of academic fields including English, education, history, and sociology. Several contributors are themselves disabled or have disabled family members. While some essays included in this volume analyze the ways that representations of disability construct identity and attitudes toward the disabled, other essays use disability as a critical modality to rethink economic theory, educational practices, and everyday interactions.