At the heart of UMInDS is our Rackham 580 class, offered twice a year, with different instructors leading different versions. Our course is cross-listed with different study areas, representing many schools at the University of Michigan:
ARCH 609/EDUC 580/ENGLISH 528/KINESLGY 505/PMR 580/RACKHAM 580/SOC 580/SW 572
This course provides an interdisciplinary student environment as well as an interdisciplinary approach to disability studies. Topics have included the history and cultural representation of disability, disability arts, advocacy, health, rehabilitation, built environment, independent living, public policy. The point of departure of the course is the idea that disability provides a critical framework that reorients the basic assumptions of various fields of knowledge, from political science to architecture, from engineering to art history, from genetics to law, from public policy to education, from biology to poetry, and so on. Disability Studies views people with disabilities not as objects but as producers of knowledge whose common history has generated a wide variety of art, music, literature, and science infused with the experience of disability.
Students will have the opportunity to interact with visiting speakers from a broad range of fields. The course is offered for 1 or 3 credits.