Video/Documentary Materials for the Classroom (to accompany Cultural Conversations):
Through Deaf Eyes (PBS)
Sound and Fury (PBS)
Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back (Brace Yourselves Productions)
The Kids are All Right (Mike Ervin) http://www.thekidsareallright.org/watch.html
Murderball (Velocity/Thinkfilm), 2005
Activity/Action Project:
Watch a popular film which features disability as a theme, or which has a main character with a disability. Write a film review in which you discuss how disability plays out in the course of the film. Is it portrayed sensitively? Is it miraculously cured by the end of the film? Is the character with a disability written and portrayed as a well-rounded person, with a sense of humor, interest in the world around them, friends, even a romantic relationship if appropriate?
Reflection:
Can we consider disability a “culture”? What attributes might a disability culture have? Are there forces, experiences or institutions particular to disability (American Sign Language, Braille, assistive technology, history of institutionalization or medicalization) which shape disability culture differently than other cultures? How has the experience of disability in America changed from Helen Keller’s time to Simi Linton’s or Georgina Kleege’s? Do you think Keller would have been on the front lines of the Gallaudet protests, signing “Deaf President Now!” along with everyone else?
Part 3 Resources
In this section of the Guide, you will find the following resources: Sample PowerPoint Presentations that can be used with Lessons 1 through 6 of Part 1. These include PowerPoint presentations for:
Lesson 1: Disability in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The Story of Samson on Page 49
Lesson 2: Uninformed Consent: Medical Testing on Vulnerable Populations
Lesson 3: The Disability Movement and The Souls Of Black Folk
Lesson 4: Disability and Sexuality
Lesson 5: Freud and Disability
Lesson 6: On the Streets and in the School Yards: Jane Jacobs’ The Death & Life of Great American Cities
Following these PowerPoint presentations is a current list of texts focused on Disability Studies available through Amazon.com.
PowerPoint Presentation for Lesson 1: Disability in the Story of Samson
Slide 1 Disability in the Story of Samson
Dr. Schipper Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible Temple University Department of Religion
Slide 2 How do we decide what counts as a disability?
Medical diagnosis?
Legal definition (Americans with Disabilities Act)?
Social Convention?
Age of the Person?
Temporary or permanent?
What does it represent in literature?
Slide 3 Physical Description in General
13:6: Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring.
13:24: The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him.
16:4: After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Slide 4 Physical Description in General
Physical description helps us connect characters to other biblical passages and identify larger themes or patterns.
Images of disability help to: 1. Structure the story
Develops themes: Alienation in the Samson story
Slide 5 Physical Description in General Physical description helps us connect characters to other biblical passages and identify larger themes or patterns. Images of disability help to:
1. Structure the story
2. Develops themes: Alienation in the Samson story
Judges 13:2-3 2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children. 3
And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, "Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son.”
Slide 7 Barrenness as Structuring Device
In legal terms?
Her Age?
Literary Feature or Device?
Slide 8 Barrenness as Structuring Device In the world of the Bible, barrenness was considered a disability and was connected to other disabilities, INCLUDING BLINDNESS
Slide 9 Barrenness as Structuring Device “But when the matriarch Sarah was remembered [gave birth], many other barren women were remembered with her; many deaf gained their hearing; many blind had their eyes opened, many insane became sane” (Genesis Rabbah 53:8). Slide 10 Blindness as Structuring Device Disability in Samson’s Birth and Death But Samson’s father and mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among your kin, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is pleasing in my eyes" (Judges 14:3). Slide 11 Blindness as Structuring Device Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was pleasing in Samson’s eyes (Judges 14:7). Slide 12 Blindness as Structuring Device “So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground at the mill in the prison” (Judges 16:21).
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