The objective of this eugenics project is to have you engage with the many resources available on the eurgenicsarchives.com website.
Watch the documentary, Surviving Eugenics, as a way to synthesize what we discussed in class, hear about the lived experience from a variety of individuals, and as a beginning point for this project.
Browse the site and take some time to engage with the material. Then select one of the 3 options below for your assignment.
Option 1:
Select at least two interviews and in combination with the documentary, discuss why multiple voices are important to understand this topic in light of a critical disability studies framework. Make sure that you are discussing these voices in specific reference to eugenics, not just voices generally.
The interviews should be drawn from these 2 portion of the eugenics archives (Interviews & Our Stories):
https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/interviews
https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/our-stories
Option 2:
Select 1 interview and 1 artifact (any other resource in the eugenics archives that represents eugenics – not a summary or encyclopedia entry). In combination with the film, provide a strong case for the development of a history minute/integration of eugenics at the elementary/secondary school level – why should Ontario/Canadian students learn about this? Is a critical disability studies perspective important to develop?
Option 3:
Select at least 1 interview and 1 artifact (or you can select 2 interviews). In combination with the film, write an editorial discussing the value of the eugenics archive website from a critical disability studies perspective.
Option 4:
Your own idea – feel free to take a different approach to this, just make sure to check in with me first. If you have an idea about how you want to approach this make sure that you are engaging with at least 2 components of the eugenics archives.
****All three options should be discussed within the framework of critical disability studies, so make sure you are doing more than just summarizing. You should be providing some kind of analysis, so move beyond indicating that you thought something was interesting and explain for your reader why it was interesting and the significance of this in the broader context of critical disability studies. You can approach this in a number of ways for example, you can draw in a discussion of the models of disability, importance of voice, intersectionality, sexual culture etc.
This is not a long assignment, so 2-3 pages double spaced, maximum. A reference list is separate and not included in the word count. You also don’t need to include a cover page as it will be uploaded directly to CU learn and I can see who the author is.
Make sure that you use academic sources and reference in text to support any idea that is not your own (even if you think it is ‘common knowledge’).
Make sure you provide the specific link to the interviews/artifacts that you choose and reference these intext.