Overview of Courses

Fall 2018; Winter 2019 (Team Taught with Jenna Reid and Danielle Landry)

This course asks students to reflect on the following questions: Where do diverse concepts of madness come from? How have these ideas changed over time? How have mad people interpreted their own experiences? This course is taught in the tradition of social history from below. It surveys the social, medical, political, economic, cultural, and religious factors that have influenced interpretations of what it means to be mad from ancient time to the present.

Mad Studies: Theories and Politics

Fall 2016, 2017, 2018

This course introduces students to the theory and politics of Mad Studies. Key ideas covered over the term include the history of mad politics in Canada; critiques of psychiatric theory and practice; intersectional analyses of mental health and illness; cultural and artistic modes of representation and resistance and Mad Pride.

Disability Issues – In the classroom and online

Winter 2015 and 2016; Summer 2015 and 2016

This course examines disability issues within a socio-political context. Such a perspective contends that it is not the specific type of disability condition which is the major source of disadvantage to the individual but the response that this condition evokes from the larger society. This course will challenge some of the traditional (and damaging) assumptions made about the needs of people labelled as being disabled and will present a framework for policy and practice designed to promote empowerment and inclusion.

For more in-depth course descriptions, feel free to reach out.