Disability & Reality TV

Catalog description

This course examines the ever growing-roster of reality television programs focused on the disabled body and mind. Bridging critical disability studies of reality television together we will explore the politics of ability in reality televisual texts with emphasis on representations of disability and their intersection with gender, race, class, sexuality, and citizenship. This course contextualizes our analysis in a broader history of disability as a site of public spectacle and the emergency of reality television as a genre. Students will interrogate the social function and consequences of these televisual texts as well as critically consider their own relationships to them.