Disability Studies Program

Minor in Disability Studies

Fordham’s Disability Studies Program helps students develop nuanced understandings of the meanings and consequences of disability in a range of historical, cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic contexts. It encourages students to consider critical questions about the nature of humanness and our bodyminds: Where are our ideas about body-mind normativity rooted? How do they shift across contexts? What are the effects of these ideas on our understanding of what it means to be human?

By centering the knowledge and experiences of disabled people, our courses open students to broader, more nuanced understandings of communication, relationality, precarity, (dis)advantage, aesthetics, technology, design, and access. Students also explore how disability intersects with other categories of identity such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. 

A minor in Disability Studies prepares students for careers in medicine, psychology, public policy, education, social work, law, technology, design, and human rights advocacy. Graduates leave Fordham having gained both conceptual knowledge and concrete skills that will enable them to work toward producing more accessible built and social environments. In this regard, the program contributes to Fordham’s social justice Mission.

Coursework in the minor consists of two required classes (Introduction to Disability Studies and an upper-level elective) and four general electives. Examples of the upper-level electives include Black Disability Studies; Media, Disability, Futurity; Philosophy of Disability; and Unstrange Minds.

Throughout the program, students have opportunities to participate in events, lectures, and the Research Consortium on Disability.