Bodies at Work: Disability and Capitalism

Catalog description

If disability has been defined as the inability to work, then an exploration of disability necessitates an exploration of capitalism. Workplaces literally injure and disable bodies, while changing arrangements of labor define and redefine what makes something a disability, requiring new tasks of bodies at work. This course traces the dynamic relationship between bodies and economies over the course of American history from the birth of industrial management science in the nineteenth century, to the “essential worker” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nimbly moving back and forth between disability studies and labor history, we will develop the conceptual tools to understand capitalism through the lens of disability, while also generating new ways to think about disability via critical histories of capitalism. We will also look at how disabled people have pushed back, envisioning new ways of valuing bodies beyond productivity.