Engagement Modules for Books
These modules were designed to supplement chapters of books developed as part of the Abolition Medicine project, with the goal of fostering deeper engagement and discussion around book content and their broader themes
-
"The Legal Determinants of Health: From Incarceration to Accessibility" (2025); Edited by Brian Dolan & Juliet McMullin
-
Session 1: Eugenics as a Coordinated System. By Preeti Juturu
This session introduces eugenics as a coordinated framework that operated across multiple institutions. Students will examine how legal, medical, scientific, and cultural systems collectively produced and reinforced ideas about “fitness,” “unfitness,” and social value.
-
Session 2: Medicine in Context: Ethics, Power and Carcerality. By Preeti Juturu
This lesson explores incarceration as a structural factor that shapes health outcomes and functional capacity. Students will examine how the conditions of confinement influence healthcare delivery, medical decision-making, and the practice of informed consent within carceral environments.
-
-
"Archive and Theory: New Directions in Early Modern Disability Studies" (Forthcoming); Edited by Jason Farr, Paul Kelleher, Jared Richmond, Lesley Thulin & Helen Deutsch
-
Beauty and Deformity: Aesthetics and the Literature of Disability from Shakespeare to the Present. By Erin Severson and Helen Deutsch
This session explores how disability is represented, interpreted, and theorized through early modern literary and archival texts. Through close reading and discussion of works, such as Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and William Hay’s “Deformity: An Essay, “ participants will examine how concepts of beauty, deformity, embodiment, and disability have evolved, while considering how archival materials both shape and challenge contemporary disability theory and identity.
-
Illness Narratives and Communities of Care: Reading Audre Lorde and Frances Burney. By Erin Severson and Helen Deutsch
This session explores illness narratives, disability, and communities of care through a close reading of Audre Lorde’s “The Cancer Journals” and Frances Burney’s account of her mastectomy. Participants will examine how illness intersects with gender, bodily autonomy, institutional medicine, and systemic violence, while reflecting on empathy, storytelling, and collective care across historical and contemporary contexts.
-
We would be honored to receive your feedback, which you can provide below: