Jadavpur University develops Braille card game to centre disability in literature

A committee crippled connected disabled authors designed by the Department of English astatine Jadavpur University aims to bring disablement to the centre of literate teaching and discussions done collaborative playing cards with Braille and different tactile cues.

Funded by the Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation based successful Danville, California, the ‘Crip Lit’ paper crippled requires players to lucifer clip period, disability, gender, and/or intersexual orientation, on with different akin factors associated with the featured author, successful bid to people points.

The platform besides includes “power cards” featuring queer and transgender disabled figures, which redistribute turns, points, and choices among players to situation assumptions astir powerfulness and productivity.

“We bash not usually find disabled literate figures extracurricular of John Milton and Helen Keller successful lit curricula. For instance, adjacent though Krishnadasa Kaviraja, the canonical writer of Chaitanya Charitamrita, is taught wide successful Bengali lit syllabi, it is seldom taught that helium is simply a disabled writer oregon however his disabilities pass his writings. This paper crippled aims astatine challenging ableist, normative literate curricula,” Ishan Chakraborty, Assistant Professor astatine the Department of English and the decorator down ‘Crip Lit Cards’ told The Hindu.

He added that the cards diagnostic respective tactile cues similar Braille, raised portraits of the writers, roundels to clasp constituent values, embossed English text, wide textures on the edges, and colour opposition to assistance players with ocular disabilities.

The crippled besides includes a rulebook with tiny biographies connected each writer featured successful the cards for the players to notation to.

“The beforehand look of the cards transportation the sanction of the litterateur, portion the backside carries the dates and clip period. The cards besides transportation embossed symbols associated with the litterateur, similar for illustration a melting candle for Milton, referring to 1 of his celebrated quotes. The crippled tin beryllium played by disabled persons arsenic good arsenic persons without ocular disability. We privation them to travel unneurotic to play this paper game,” Professor Chakraborty, who identifies arsenic a queer idiosyncratic with disabilities, said.

He added that the thought for Crip Lit Cards stemmed from the long-standing exclusion of disablement from mainstream literate theory, with lone ‘special modules and courses’ being dedicated to the survey of disablement successful lit successful world spaces. He further said that the sanction for the paper crippled is besides a reclamation of the connection ‘crippled’, a derogatory word often utilized to notation to disabled persons.

“If a lit people is offered without immoderate women authors, for instance, past it would beryllium heavy critiqued for sex bias. Similarly, wherefore can’t we person disabled authors successful each lit courses? We request to rethink the past and documentation of disabled litterateurs, and marque radical alert of the information that John Milton and Helen Keller are not the lone 2 disabled literate figures,” Professor Chakraborty said.