Welcome to the Deaf Geographies working group.
We are a group of colleagues from the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. working together to explore the connection between deaf studies and geography. This site is being co-developed in order to summarize the practical and theoretical aspects of this project. We welcome contributions, questions and feedback.
Deaf space - Thinking outside of the Gallaudet hub
October 2011 - Takeshi Hosaka, of DeZeen magazine, exposes pictures of a supposedly Deaf-friendly house, located in Tokyo, Japan. It was designed especially to allow Deaf parents to communicate easily with their children through one of the 101 windows scattered on the walls, the ceilings and even the roof.
Tokyo's original house has nothing to see with Gallaudet's DeafSpace project, indubitably THE world leader in Deaf architecture! While the first was conceived to serve the Deaf family's needs, the latter is especially conceived for public places such as the University itself, for instance...
This is something to be considered... Meanwhile, do you happen to know where can we find other Deaf Space architectural designs that weren't developed, conceived nor inspired by Gallaudet University?
Learn more...
UPDATE - Novembrer 9th, 2011
Here's the answer to our question, i.e. Is there another similar projects somewhere else in the world? YES!
A project in London (UK) recently started. The Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf education building should be build in the years to come! It's quite an impressive concept!!
For further info, click here.
Tokyo's original house has nothing to see with Gallaudet's DeafSpace project, indubitably THE world leader in Deaf architecture! While the first was conceived to serve the Deaf family's needs, the latter is especially conceived for public places such as the University itself, for instance...
This is something to be considered... Meanwhile, do you happen to know where can we find other Deaf Space architectural designs that weren't developed, conceived nor inspired by Gallaudet University?
Learn more...
UPDATE - Novembrer 9th, 2011
Here's the answer to our question, i.e. Is there another similar projects somewhere else in the world? YES!
A project in London (UK) recently started. The Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf education building should be build in the years to come! It's quite an impressive concept!!
For further info, click here.
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Deaf Space Project, Gallaudet University
This video discusses a project on Gallaudet University campus (the only university in the world dedicated to Deaf and/or signing students) to explore what it means to have "deaf space". The first video is presenting only in ASL, and the second video is presented only in English.
Deaf and Punk? Researchers in San Francisco are exploring this question.
No author name was found for this post, but please explore the link below or click on the picture on the left.
Abandoning the City of the Ear: The Interplay and Interpenetration of Punk and Deaf Identities
For decades, describing the voice of iconic Blank Generation performers has constituted the normalized narrative of punk rock critiques. The supposed raw power and authenticity of the genre are often directly linked to such orality: Joe Strummer’s “barbaric-yawp” shapes perceptions of his inflammatory streetwise ideology (songs like “London’s Burning”); Johnny Rotten’s persona is subsumed by the filth, ugliness, and vitriol of his “ruthless-growl” (“Bodies”); while Poly Styrene’s bristling howl, which could disinfect a toilet according to writer Greil Marcus, becomes a codex for living in the age of commodity-hypnotized consumer culture (“Warrior in Woolworths” and “The Day the World Turned Dayglo”). Karina Eileraas even argues punk women used such “impure” voices for “cathartic expression” to articulate their sense of self and “revolt against grammar and syntax of phallogocentrism” (1997). This emphasis on ‘think-oral,’ however, may eclipse other legacies of punk, including how the genre fostered liminal social spaces, translocal community-building, performative rituals such as distressing dances and rough-hewn dress, and the effective conceits and inventiveness of punk texts, which deaf punk participants can fully experience and appreciate. Since deaf punks have largely gone unnoticed, perhaps even suffered marginalization, in both academic and popular press tomes evoking punk culture, I will argue they represent an unheard, invisible minority testing punk’s sense of multivocality and mixophilic diversity. Combining hints of Stuart Hall’s notion of “multicultural drift,” Paul Hodkinson’s analysis and axioms of subculture status (identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness, and autonomy), and folklore-based ethnography, I will: explore a short history of deaf/punk intersections, such as San Francisco’s infamous Deaf Club, which featured the Mutants and Dead Kennedys in the late 1970s; document the ways deaf punks navigate and make meaning from punk; and probe whether they represent a subaltern group within the community.
Learn More
Abandoning the City of the Ear: The Interplay and Interpenetration of Punk and Deaf Identities
For decades, describing the voice of iconic Blank Generation performers has constituted the normalized narrative of punk rock critiques. The supposed raw power and authenticity of the genre are often directly linked to such orality: Joe Strummer’s “barbaric-yawp” shapes perceptions of his inflammatory streetwise ideology (songs like “London’s Burning”); Johnny Rotten’s persona is subsumed by the filth, ugliness, and vitriol of his “ruthless-growl” (“Bodies”); while Poly Styrene’s bristling howl, which could disinfect a toilet according to writer Greil Marcus, becomes a codex for living in the age of commodity-hypnotized consumer culture (“Warrior in Woolworths” and “The Day the World Turned Dayglo”). Karina Eileraas even argues punk women used such “impure” voices for “cathartic expression” to articulate their sense of self and “revolt against grammar and syntax of phallogocentrism” (1997). This emphasis on ‘think-oral,’ however, may eclipse other legacies of punk, including how the genre fostered liminal social spaces, translocal community-building, performative rituals such as distressing dances and rough-hewn dress, and the effective conceits and inventiveness of punk texts, which deaf punk participants can fully experience and appreciate. Since deaf punks have largely gone unnoticed, perhaps even suffered marginalization, in both academic and popular press tomes evoking punk culture, I will argue they represent an unheard, invisible minority testing punk’s sense of multivocality and mixophilic diversity. Combining hints of Stuart Hall’s notion of “multicultural drift,” Paul Hodkinson’s analysis and axioms of subculture status (identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness, and autonomy), and folklore-based ethnography, I will: explore a short history of deaf/punk intersections, such as San Francisco’s infamous Deaf Club, which featured the Mutants and Dead Kennedys in the late 1970s; document the ways deaf punks navigate and make meaning from punk; and probe whether they represent a subaltern group within the community.
Learn More
