Though it was only mentioned briefly in Freaks and Queers, I was very interested by the parallel drawn between working as a freak and working as a prostitute (Clare 92). Capitalism, and the bigotry it breeds, has been credited again and again with the creation and definition of disability. Any perceived deviation from the norm leaves an individual or group vulnerable to exile into the fringes of society. Once you’re isolated and assigned an undesirable label, there’s only so much you can do to survive. Unfortunately, this often requires some form of self-exploitation.

I really appreciated reading and listening to the work of Riva Lehrer for class today. I was interested in looking more at her artwork, and I found this piece (included below). I thought that this spoke to the frequent comparisons drawn between animals and members of the disabled community. In her article for the New York Times, Lehrer talks about having to dress in costume every day to hide the "monster" that society believed her to be. After reading that article, and then seeing this piece, I wonder if Lehrer is using that idea of a monster, or something scary and unknown like a dragon, to convey how others see her in this piece. I'd love to hear your interpretations of the piece and I'm including a link I found to more of Lehrer's artwork. 

After the reading, I thought of how ideas of "othering" people through the lens of disability have persisted. My mind immediately jumped to Ripley's Believe It or Not! The name itself signals to the customers that what they are about to see is so strange that they question whether or not it's actually true. It's eerily similar to marketing used for freak shows. At freakshows, people "...came to have their ideas of normal and abnormal, superior and inferior, their sense of self, confirmed and strengthened" (Clare 86). Ripley's and P.T.

Here is the document from my Medicine in Modern American History class last year.

 Facial Prosthetics from WWI, as well as more recent prosthetics!

(Trigger warning on inappropriate language used to describe disabled and LGBTQ+ people). 

Across both the reading for tomorrow in chapter 6 of A Disability History, as well as the podcast for thursday, and many other sources on eugenics, epilepsy appears to be one of the most common conditions mentioned as a reason for forced sterilization or placemenent in institutions for people with disabilites. This mad eme question why epilepsy drew so much focus, particularly when  other disabilities are much more visible on a daily basis. After doing some research, I found that epilepsy (once called the "sacred disease") was first referenced over 4,000 years ago on a Akkadian tablet and was attributed to possession by a god or demon (Kaculini et al).

I really enjoyed this film. I loved the commuinity feeling and connectedness throughout the film. It really showed that disbaility is isolating because of our ableist outlook on it, not because it itslef is limiting. I espcially liked the scene when the STD got spread around the camp. It just felt like a very oridinary occurance, and it was nice to see the group dealing with such an oridinary "normal" issue rather than constantly having "to face their diabilities". It helped the viewer realize disabled people are just like them, they attend summer camps, make friends, and have sex. 

I chose a black and white photograph in the gallery. It is a pile of rocks. The view of the camera is from the bottom. You can see each indiviual massive rock at the bottom of the frame, and the rocks seem to be stacked on top of eachother, growing as you look up the picture to the top in a mountain-like peak. As the rocks grow they seem to give way to either some sort of fungus or trees at the triangular top peak. The top of the peak is a little flat. There is some grey shading at the top of the frame and it seems to come from the top of the peal, like a plume of smoke from a volcaneo. On either side of the mountain of rocks are two naked women. They sit just below the line where the rocks give way to trees or fungus.