POLS 430: Disability, Identity, and Politics

Professor Matthew Moore

Disability raises many difficult questions. Who is disabled, and by what? What (if anything) do people with various physical and/or mental differences have in common with each other? How does disability intersect with other kinds of identity? Is disability in some sense political, and if so how and in what ways? Beginning to answer these questions for ourselves raises many more: What is the relationship between loving oneself and also wanting to change one's body or mind in profound ways? Is there room for the idea of "false consciousness" in today's politics, and if there is not, does that mean giving up on cultural criticism? Is transhumanism (the desire to use technology to transcend the present limitations of humanity) a friend to the disabled, an enemy, or some combination of the two?