Carol Donley, Ph.D.
donleycc@hiram.edu

Sheryl Buckley, M.D.
sbuckley@buckeyeweb.com

I. Course description

This team-taught interdisciplinary course focuses on literature about physical disability, both from the clinical perspectives and from the stories of patients and their caregivers. The course examines the pressures of society to fix or to cast out those who deviate too far from its norms. Interdisciplinary courses at Hiram College are designed to bring the perspectives and understandings of two or more disciplines to bear on a central issue or theme. The underlying assumptions are that there is no one right answer or one correct way to solve the problems, and that looking at them from different ways of understanding will broaden our appreciation of their complexities and ramifications. In this course we will ask the question of “what’s normal?” from medical, literary and ethical perspectives, with the expectation that you will be adding your own perspectives from your experience.

1. to raise students’ awareness of and sensitivity to the issues faced by those with physical disabilities

2. to help students see how arbitrary definitions of normal seem to be, yet how powerfully the idea of normal affects human behavior

3. to increase students’ tolerance for difference

4. to help students recognize different perspectives, writing styles, and audiences of the professional articles and fictional works

The course serves three main curricular requirements:
It meets the team-taught interdisciplinary requirement
It serves both the minor and the major in Biomedical Humanities

III. Course expectations

Texts:
Tyranny of the Normal, eds Donley and Buckley
Elephant Man, Pomerance
Selected xeroxes distributed in class

Please read the articles and literary works listed in the syllabus for each weekend before class.

Grades will be based on papers (20% each), journal (20%), attendance and participation (20%) and final exam (20%)

Students who miss a class may help make up the deficit by writing a paper on the material discussed in the missed class. The student should confer with the faculty before writing the paper. Only one absence may be made up in this manner.

IV. Schedule

Week 1: August 24	Introduction to the course on "What's Normal?" Opening discussion of the Fiedler essays, "The Tyranny of the Normal" and "Freaks," in the anthology Discussion of the play Elephant Man
Week 2: Sept. 7	Essays in Tyranny of the Normal; "The Quasimodo Complex" and all responding commentary, pp. 11-88 Section on abnormal height (dwarfism), pp. 213-255. Concentrate on "Dwarf House," "The Dwarf," and "Hop-Frog," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," p. 349 video from 60 minutes
Week 3: Sept. 21	Tolerance and uncertainty. Bronowski, "Ascent of Man," reading and video If men are normal, what are women? Essays in Tyranny:"Mismeasure of Woman"
Week 4: Oct. 5	First paper due Cultural paradigms for women Eating disorders (second discussion) Essays in Tyranny: "Shame and Body Image" "To Be or Not To Be a Woman," pp. 89-138 "Skanks," "Diary of an Anorexic," "Disappearing""The Fat Girl," "The Meal," "The Pull" video from the Netherlands on euthanasia of an anorexic
Week 5: Oct. 19	Cultural paradigms for men: the boy code Handouts from Real Boys and Raising Cain "Washing Your Feet," "The Six Hundred Pound Man," "Fat," "Weight Bearing," video of My Left Foot
Week 6: Nov. 2	Second paper due Disabilities: Family perspectives video: "When Billy Broke His Head" 1921, from Sula, "Everyday Use," "Good Country People," "The Birthmark," "Journal of a Leper" "Another Year in Chronic IA"
Week 7: Nov. 16	Final Take Home Exam due, Journals due Readings on children and disabilities:"Song for My Son," "The Ones that are Thrown Out," "Letter from Rehab," "The Ear"