Nuts and Bolts:
Assignment Parameters for Short Paper #2:
The readings for this unit, “The Dissonance of Democracy,” share themes of “listening” to concepts or approaches that are not thought to go together, in order to open critical ways of thinking that help us to imagine different possibilities and actions. Our authors put things together such as: “deliberative democracy” and “activist democracy” (Iris Marion Young) and “bodies stolen” and “bodies reclaimed” (Eli Clare), even though they do not neatly resolve. The authors find this dissonance to be productive in ways that a neat resolution often is not, and thus useful for democratic practice, or in “refiguring the world.” (Clare). They also connect the most intimate aspects of embodied experience as a key part of this work.
In this paper, please focus on a theme, event, action, or memory as described in Judith Heumann’s Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist that exemplifies the power of activating and listening to the “dissonance of democracy” (Bickford) in order to “refigure the world” (Clare). Develop your analysis through one or more of these analytic frameworks: Young (deliberative/activist democracy) or Clare (stolen bodes, reclaimed bodies). Feel free to incorporate other readings or films from Weeks 7 and 8 if you wish.
Beginning (1 or 2 paragraphs):
Middle: (at least 2 paragraphs)
End: (at least 1 paragraph)