Disability Studies

Disability Studies Minor
This minor includes courses on disability culture, activism, and history. It asks the following questions: what counts as “normal” and why? What are the racialized and class dimensions of “ability?” How do people with disabilities navigate a largely inaccessible world? What does disability look like on a global scale? What are the lived experiences of disability, and how are they central to American history and culture? How is disability coded by gender or sexuality? What is the value of learning about the lives and contributions of people with disabilities? How is disability related to environmental studies, bioethics, animal studies?
Degree Types: Minor

About the Program

You might like this program if…

  • You are interested in the engineering or architecture of built environments, health care professions, art and performance, social history, social justice activism, the political philosophy of citizenship, contemporary literature, legal studies, community advocacy, universal design. The list is endless, since Disability Studies is a genuinely multidisciplinary field. All students are welcome.

Coursework

  • Introduction to Disability Studies in the Humanities
  • Deaf Culture
  • Inclusive Leisure Services
  • American Sign Language
  • History of Madness, Mental Illness, and Psychiatry

Have questions about this program?

Future students, contact Chantel Harley.

Current students, contact your academic adviser

This program is housed in the
 at Penn State University Park.
Future Students
CURRENT Students
Graduate Students
Get Funding

Rock Ethics Institute research associate Yael Warshel is poised to receive a book award at the International Communication Association’s annual meeting for her pioneering work in the book “Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Children, Peace Communication, and Socialization.” Her book, a critical examination of peace communication interventions and their effects on children in conflict zones, has received international acclaim, with this being the book’s second major accolade.

Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing program recently launched a new Open Access monograph. “The Future of Foster Care: New Science on Old Problems,” edited by Yo Jackson and Sarah Font, is a collection of expanded conference proceedings from the 2019 conference of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, a national leader in research designed to influence public policy that better protects vulnerable children from abuse.

P. Gabrielle Foreman, Paterno Family Professor of American Literature and professor of African American studies and history at Penn State and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, embarked on a decade-long creative endeavor that culminated in her recently released edited volume, “Praise Songs for Dave the Potter: Art and Poetry for David Drake.”

WPSU uncovers the stories that unveil the triumph, grit, caution and legend that make up the history of the commonwealth in a new digital series titled “Past PA.”

Janet van Hell, a longtime Penn State faculty member in the College of the Liberal Arts’ Department of Psychology and director of the Center for Language Science, was recently promoted to distinguished professor of psychology and linguistics.

Liberal Arts Professor of English and Asian Studies Xiaoye You’s new book on rhetoric in early imperial China offers insights into how ancient rulers built and maintained an empire, and what that may reveal about contemporary issues.

Nearly 100 Centre County high school students visited Penn State’s University Park campus on April 12 to participate in the fourth annual Language and Linguistics Day hosted by Penn State’s Center for Language Science.

The Penn State Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction recently hosted its fourth annual conference in the HUB-Robeson Center at the University Park campus. 

An interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers have received a $442,750 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, to support a multi-faceted, three-part study that observes how gay and bisexual men search and find HIV prevention information — specifically information about pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a medicine that when taken as prescribed, is very effective at preventing HIV.

Two Penn State professors — one in history and the other in art history and anthropology — have collaborated on a three-pronged project that will spark conversation and awe about the art, culture, science and history of Andean peoples.