DIS ST 360 A Su 25: Redesigning Humanity: Disability In Speculative Fiction

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DIS ST 360 Redesigning Humanity: Disability in Speculative Fiction

Summer 2025 - Full Term

Distance Learning, Asynchronous

Instructor: Joanne Woiak

Contact: jwoiak@uw.edu

Office Hours: Thursdays 10-11am, and by appointment, on Zoom: 

cover of the novel Dawn by Octavia E. Butler. Subheading A Lilith's Breed novel. Drawing of the face of a Black woman from the side partially covered with colorful weaving strips.Book cover An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon

Announcements:

  • Course evaluation is open Aug 13 -22, thank you for taking time to provide feedback! LINK
  • The deadline to submit ALL coursework is Friday, August 22, 11:59pm. Please be in touch with any questions - if you need an extension it will be approved, but please let me know!

Welcome and getting started:

Hello and welcome to my Disability Studies class on speculative fiction! This is a fully remote and asynchronous course, and it’s designed to provide flexibility in how you access the content and how you show your engagement with the material. Please call me Joanne. I’m looking forward to teaching and learning with you this quarter.

I've created a survey (google form) that you can use to communicate with me about any access needs you may have for learning in this course, including content warnings about the readings & films. If you anticipate or encounter barriers because of any aspect of how the course is taught, I encourage you to contact me as soon as possible so that we can discuss options. This applies to everyone, whether or not you have formal DRS accommodations. Use the survey or email me any time. You can also tell me about any concerns or suggestions you have about asynchronous instruction. The survey also has questions about accessing my office hours and perhaps creating a synchronous Zoom meeting for students to meet up, if there's interest. The survey will stay open all quarter and you can answer anonymously if you prefer.

Navigating this Canvas site:

You will find all the materials for the week both on the weekly Homepage and by clicking NEXT as you move through each page of the Module.

Click here to start the course in the Week 1 Module

Students will participate in asynchronous discussions and other activities, contribute to facilitating discussion of the texts, take part in collaborative reading and annotating, and write response papers about the readings and films. There are no exams, quizzes, or essays.

Due dates for assignments are generally flexible. The course will work best for all of us if we aim to roughly meet the deadlines especially for assignments related to participation, so that we can engage in generative discussions together. Also note that Summer final grades are due by mid-August.

Course description:

How do renowned speculative fiction writer Octavia E. Butler and other disabled, BIPOC, and multiply marginalized artist-activists imagine where we will be in the near future? Their interventions in the speculative fiction (SF) genre aim to “write ourselves into the future,” as Butler put it. This course will analyze SF texts - centering stories and novels by Black disabled authors, as well as several SF films - that use speculative settings and nonrealist conventions to comment on contemporary social, political, and ethical concerns. From Frankenstein to Brave New World to Gattaca and beyond, SF has imagined the artificial creation, manipulation, and enhancement of human life. We’ll critique how SF has deployed potentially problematic tropes and metaphors that reflect mainstream attitudes about disability, race, gender, and sexuality.

By focusing on the connection between speculative fiction, the field of disability studies (DS), and the work of BIPOC, queer, and trans Disability Justice (DJ) activists and scholars, the course will consider representations of disability and neurodivergence, including intersections of racism and ableism. As DS scholar Sami Schalk contends, disability is central to speculative fiction and SF “allows us to imagine otherwise.... for marginalized people, this can mean imagining a future or alternative space away from oppression or in which relations between currently empowered and disempowered groups are altered or improved” (Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction). Authors and readers create new meanings of accessibility, identity, community, family, justice, normal, and human. 

This course has no prerequisites. It fulfills DIV requirements, and fulfills Subfield C Diversity, Representation, Identity of the DS Major and Minor.

Assignments:

Important Canvas Links

Accommodations, access, and resources:

The instructor is trying to create an inclusive learning environment. Your experiences in the class are important to me. If you anticipate or encounter barriers participating or demonstrating your learning because of any aspect of how the course is taught, I encourage you to contact me as soon as possible so that we can discuss options. This applies to all students.

We can work in conjunction with Disability Resources for Students: Disability Resources for Students (UW Seattle) Email: uwdrs@uw.edu Phone: 206-543-8924. If you have already established accommodations with DRS, please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.  Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS.

Mental Health Services to Students - main UW website with many on-campus and off-campus resources: https://wellbeing.uw.edu/topic/mental-health

 

Here are some UW writing resources that are available to students in this class:

 

UW Religious Accommodations Policy:

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request.

 

Readings:

We will read 2 novels, several short stories, essays by activists and fiction writers, and scholarly texts that provide contextual information and critical perspectives. We will watch several speculative fiction films and shows and documentary videos. Digital editions of the novels are available via UW Libraries. ANY edition or version of these is fine to use for class.

  • Octavia E. Butler, Dawn (Warner Books, 1987)
  • Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts (Akashic Books, 2017)

The rest of the readings will be provided on the Canvas site as PDFs and links. Films can be found online via streaming services or recordings will be provided.

Please aim to do the required reading during the week in which it’s assigned, so that you’re prepared to participate in online discussions sharing your ideas, queries, and opinions. You must consult the course website regularly for readings, supplementary texts, and updates to the assignments.

 

Learning objectives:

  • Acquire analytic tools for evaluating representations and metaphors of disability in cultural texts.
  • Identify the social functions and literary conventions of the speculative fiction genre.
  • Study cultural contributions and activism of disabled people.
  • Gain a theoretical background in the field of disability studies.
  • Apply critical analysis to the interactions between science, society, and popular culture.
  • Develop skills in critical thinking about diversity and intersectionality.
  • Sharpen skills in textual analysis and writing.

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due