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Mike Gulliver
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Mike Gulliver
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Mike Gulliver
Call for papers: Deaf World/Hearing World – Berlin, December 2012
Please note, this is being organised by a third party and is presented here for information only. Any follow-up or questions, please address them directly to the organisers of the conference. Thank you :)
Deaf World/Hearing World: Spaces, Techniques, and Things in Culture and History
–Sponsored by the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and Project Biocultures, University of Illinois at Chicago.
The history of deafness presents an exemplary model of a community mobilization for the recognition of a cultural identity. It is also an unequaled history of divisions across a broad range of pedagogy, techniques, and scientific inventions.
Across the last four centuries at least, constructions of deafness as a cultural identity and/or as a disability have lead to opposite claims. Deafness became a focal point for arguments over citizenship, eugenics, language, theories of the mind, and the like. A different set of categories was produced to give voice to these claims and the dialogue between their supporters has been extremely difficult for lack of a common stake.
Depending on the approach, one can say such a heated debate has given the question of deafness a very specific place among human variations. Sign language, in particular, has lead many to question the relationship between mind, body, and language.
We welcome papers on the social, cultural, scientific and philosophical attempts to mediate the space between the deaf and the hearing across history. Topics include the use of objects and techniques for creating a space of encounter, conceptions of the relationship between humans and language, language and thought, or language and society across time and space.
We are seeking explorations of the dialectic between hearing and silence, deaf and hearing as well as the technologies and ideologies that intervene between the deaf world and the hearing world, the deaf person and the hearing person.
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in conjunction with Project Biocultures at the University of Illinois at Chicago will host the conference on December 10-11, 2012 in Berlin. Please send your abstract to Thu-Tra Dang ttdang@mpiwgberlin.mpg.de by July 3, 2012. Scholars will be informed by July 23 if their abstract has
been selected.A travel fund is available, please let us know when submitting your abstract if you need an allowance to cover part of your trip.
The conference will be in English and in sign language. The Max Planck Institute will welcome interpreters to make possible presentations in sign language. To facilitate the organization, please contact us as soon as possible if you need an interpreter of American/British/national sign language. Please mention the contact information of a couple of interpreters.
If you have questions please contact Sabine Arnaud at sarnaud@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de, or Lennard Davis at lendavis@uic.edu
If you plan to attend the conference without giving a paper and require special assistance, please send an email to Thu-Tra Dang ttdang@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Mary Beth Kitzel
EDGS Meet!
The inaugural European Deaf Geographies Summit (EDGS) met 23-25 April 2012 in Bristol. The three-day meeting was informal, intense, exciting and productive. Our numbers may have been few, but our vision mighty! Below is a synopsis of our activities:
Day 1: We convened and covered a range of issues from the history of the field to researcher existential angst to publishing to future research agendas. Surrounded the talks with delicious food and ended the evening with a screening of The Hammer.
Day 2: Mary Beth Kitzel gave a presentation on her dissertation research at Bristol’s Centre for Deaf Studies, followed by a short field walk of the university neighbourhood, and a more extensive excursion into the region, including North Somerset, Somerset and Bristol. Highlights included the Cheddar Gorge and Weston-Super-Mare. The evening film screening was The Heart of the Hydrogen Jukebox.
Day 3. Final Day. Spent morning networking with personnel from Bristol including Dai O’Brien and Donna West. The afternoon was a strategy session for future projects, including The Field School of Deaf Geographies’ curriculum. Delegates departed in the late afternoon.
All in all, a cracking three days. A HUGE thank you to the Gulliver family, our excellent hosts, for permitting the invasion. I am already looking forward to the next time we convene. If you’re interested in joining us for the next EDGS event, please contact any of the founding organizers: Gill Harold (UC Cork), Mike Gulliver (Bristol), or Mary Beth Kitzel (Sussex).
Mike Gulliver
Deaf spaces and places – early explorations of geographical theory
You can now find a pdf of Elizabeth Mathews (2007) chapter on the application of geographical theory to Deaf space linked to from the resources page.
If you’re somewhat flumoxed by the geography-speak that you find on this site, Mathews’ chapter is a good place to start. She gently unpacks the role that geographical theory might play in validating Deaf spaces and bases this in work that is ongoing at Gallaudet.
For those of us a bit more used to the idea of Deaf Geographies – the great news is just how far we’ve come theoretically since Mathews wrote this.
Go team !
Mike Gulliver
The Spread of Deafhood
Jordan Eickman’s paper uses ARC GIS to map and visualise the historical spread of clubs and schools for deaf people in Germany, as a way of exploring the expansion of historical Deafhood and the emergence of Deaf ‘Pillars’, upon which the German Deaf community was/is built.
Jordan’s paper is now available in the Resources Area in two sections.
Mike Gulliver and 
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MM
The fact deaf attend deaf clubs is no indication of the spread of deafhood, if it is it is dead in the UK. I challenge the fact people deaf automatically support deafhood, we reject it, and the writer of their ‘Bible’ is actually an UK resident who could not convince anyone here.
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Mike Gulliver
Hi MM – perhaps you’re right – We’re not making any kind of argument for Deafhood here – only reporting the title of the paper and what Jordan writes.
Setting aside the question of Deafhood, is there still interest in the way that clubs and schools for deaf people have spread – carrying language and culture out from a central starting ‘point’ or ‘points’?
Mary Beth Kitzel
Check out information on the inaugural 2013 Deaf Geographies Field School at Queen’s University (Canada) Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex here:
http://mbkitzel.wordpress.com/
Mike Gulliver
Historically naming Deaf spaces and places
During my recent visit to Rochester Institute of Technology, the US university that houses the NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), I had the pleasure of meeting Rebecca Edwards who is RIT’s Department Chair for History.
Rebecca is an historian of the Deaf community (amongst other things) and has written articles on 19th and 20th century Deaf history. One of these, in particular, is a useful contribution to Deaf geography, and talks about the way that historical trends and knowledges influence the naming, and the reception of the naming, of spaces and places.
The article, Edwards RAR (2007) “Chasing Aleck, The Story of a Dorm”, has been added to the resource list.
Mike Gulliver
AAG 2012 presentations
OK, so I’m not going to put up all the abstracts to the AAG presentations – there doesn’t seem much point when they are posted elsewhere.
But – here’s a list of presenters, their papers, and links to their abstracts and to (at least one of) their own pages.
Enjoy
Session 1
- Austin Kocher – The Ohio State University, Department of Geography – “What is Deaf Geography?: An Interpreter Steps Out of Role“
- Emily Fekete – University of Kansas – “Geography and American Sign Language: Rethinking Language and Space“
- Mike Gulliver – University of Bristol – “Deaf Geographies – pasts, presents, futures“
- Pierre Schmitt – Center for Language, Interaction and Culture (CLIC), UCLA – “International Deaf Geographies : Toward a Global Community ? “
Session 2
- Jordan Eickman, Ph.D. – California State University, Northridge – “Tracing Deafhood: Exploring the origins and spread of Deaf cultural identity“
- Cynthia Benoit – INRS Urbanisation Culture Société Alain Turpin – SIVET – Urban d/Deaf population and services: Using GIS to explore Deaf geography and geographical accessibility
- Mary Beth Kitzel – Queen’s University (Canada) Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex. “Inspiring the next generation of Deaf geographers” (Mary Beth didn’t present a talk – instead, she spoke about the proposed field school on Deaf Geography planned for summer 2013 – for more information, see her comment below).
- Dai O’brien – School for Policy Studies, Bristol University – “Using visual research to explore the space of young d/Deaf people“
Session 3
- Jeffrey Mansfield – Harvard University Graduate School of Design – “The Genius of the Deaf Experience: Designing Spaces and Infrastructures of Communication“
- Hansel Bauman – Gallaudet University – “The DeafSpace Project: Communicating Through Space, Light, Form and Material“
- Russell Rosen – Teachers College, Columbia University – “Sensescapes in the American Deaf Community“
- Deniz Ilkbasaran – UC, San Diego – “Late Modernity Mobilities and the Future of Deaf Geographies“
- Robert T. Sirvage – Gallaudet University – “Peripatetic Spaces in the Making: New Methodologies for Deaf Epistemologies“
director of the Field School for Deaf Geographies at the Queen’s University (Canada) Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex. For additional information regarding the 2013 Field School of Deaf Geographies, please contact me at Deaf_geog@bisc.queensu.ac.uk
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Mary Beth
Actually, I was at the AAG in my role as director of the Field School for Deaf Geographies at the Queen’s University (Canada) Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex. For additional information regarding the 2013 Field School of Deaf Geographies, please contact me at Deaf_geog@bisc.queensu.ac.uk. I’m happy to answer any enquiries about the programme.
Cheers!-
Mike Gulliver
Thanks MB, and sorry for getting it wrong. I’ve tweaked the text at the top to reflect this.
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Mike Gulliver
Back from the AAG – the future starts here
So – back from the AAG.
Three amazing sessions on Deaf geographies… I’ll be posting up the session details in a bit.
13 presentations in all, from all over, presented in two different signed languages and English.
… and a great time within the group catching up and taking the field forward.
Deaf geographies is going places people – these are VERY exciting times.
Make sure you stay on board :)
Deaf geographies sandbox 
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