Colonialism and Disability

 

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This week's guest presenter is Dr. Jessica Cowing, a teacher and scholar of colonialism and disability studies. Dr. Cowing attended SUNY Oneonta, received an M.A. from the California State University at Long Beach and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary.

In recent years it has been a custom at many gatherings of people in North America who wish to acknowledge the history of colonialism by which many us have come to be resident on this land, to introduce themselves with respectful citation of the indigenous people who once occupied the land where they currently reside or meet. Dr. Cowing suggests students might begin this week by considering what native peoples lived on the land before them, wherever you might be from or where you currently reside.

Dr.   Dr Cowing says to take a look at Native Land, and if you don’t already know, locate the tribal homelands for where you currently live or stay. Whose lands does your college occupy?

Watch this 4 minute Video that explains the concepts of Disability Justice and Transformative Justice.

Dr. Cowing also suggests we consider The Cogewea Project a Twine2 text game that adapts the novel Cogewea by the indigenous novelist, Mourning Dove.  The novel was written in 1912 and finally published in 1927.  It is a revision of the "western" genre from an indigenous and female point of view icorporating storytelling traditions of the Okanagan people.  Because this game is in the Twine2 programming platform which we will be using this semester, this is great way to see how the platform can work to activate story and worldbuilding.  The project uses game thinking as a means to bring interactivity to the text of the novel.  In the sample below only two chapters have been completed. Please play this game before coming to class. It is available here:

The Cogewea Project Twine2 Game

There is an academic paper by Sara Humphreys, the leader of the project, that describes the team's approach to adapting the story here:

 

Creating a Playable Academic Edition of Mourning Dove’s Cogewea or How Games can Decolonize

For More Information and Resources Please Go to the Activity Page for this Week where you can see this week's additional questions for the Worldbuilding Questionnaire.

Those questions have also been added to the Questionnaire Page on this Blog.