Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University

This dissertation explores the historical developments and progressions that led up to the uprisings at Gallaudet University. The uprisings, the 1988 Deaf President Now and the 2006 Unity for Gallaudet (also known as Better President Now) protests, were not accidental nor were they even isolated from the overall history of deaf education, educational and advancement opportunities for people who are deaf, access to languages (English and American Sign Language), recognition and validation for the Deaf Community and its culture and language as opposed as deafness as pathological, and the structure of the university that affirmed or denied those histories. In other words, the architecture (in more senses than simply blueprints of buildings) of the curriculum, policies, faculty, staff, and student body, has been informed by and has informed the larger discourses about deafness, deaf education, and policy-making process. The uprisings aimed to challenge those discourses with the goal of achieving humanity for people who are deaf, educated, and skilled, and with the goal of overthrowing the structure and its mechanism for (re)producing the discourses.

Author

• Franklin, Paige Elizabeth

Language

• en

Keyword

• DPN
• ASL
• Deaf Community
• protests
• deaf education
• Gallaudet

Date created

• 2010

Type of Work

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• English

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Moshenberg, Daniel

Committee Member(s)

• Lopez, Antonio
• Mahshie, James J
• McRuer, Robert
• Stremlau, Tonya M

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/t148fh186