For a long time, disability studies has focused on the past, early representations of people with disabilities and histories of the movement for disability rights. This course turns toward the future, looking at activism and speculative fiction as critical vehicles for change. Drawing on fiction by Samuel Beckett, Muriel Rukeyser, and Octavia Butler, this course will address the question of the future through an interrogation of the relationship between disability and technology, including assistive technology, genetic testing, organ transplantation.
5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
For a long time, disability studies has focused on the past, early representations of people with disabilities and histories of the movement for disability rights. This course turns toward the future, looking at activism and speculative fiction as critical vehicles for change. Drawing on fiction by Samuel Beckett, Muriel Rukeyser, and Octavia Butler, this course will address the question of the future through an interrogation of the relationship between disability and technology, including assistive technology, genetic testing, organ transplantation.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.