‘Double Whammy’?! Historical Glimpses of Black Deaf Americans

Authors

  • Anja Werner Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin Medizinische Fakultät Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.288

Abstract

Discrimination on account of both one’s hearing status and skin color can be disabling—but it can also be enabling, as I will show in this historical overview on Black deaf Americans. I examine Black deaf Americans as a minority group within a minority past and present, their changing relationship with signed language, and their activism especially with regard to desegregating education. I argue that Black deaf persons have significantly contributed to American culture, although their contributions have gone largely unacknowledged.

Author Biography

Anja Werner, Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin Medizinische Fakultät Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Anja Werner, née Becker, is a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for history and ethics of medicine at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Her research interests include  educational, medical, and scientific transatlantic transfers with a special focus on black and deaf perspectives. She earned her Ph.D. degree in American and French studies from the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 2006 and subsequently coordinated the international Alexander-von-Humboldt-in-English-Project at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee (until 2009). She recently directed a German-language project about transnational pharmaceutical research during the Cold War (University of Leipzig Press, 2016). Among her major publications is The Transatlantic World of Higher Education: Americans at German Universities, 1776–1914“ (Berghahn Books, 2013). She is also a co-editor and contributor to Anywhere but Here: Black Intellectuals in the Atlantic World and Beyond“, (University Press of Mississippi/ January 2015 / paperback 2017).

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Published

2018-02-03

How to Cite

Werner, Anja. “‘Double Whammy’?! Historical Glimpses of Black Deaf Americans”. Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, Feb. 2018, doi:10.5283/copas.288.

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 2 (2017): Dis-eased: Critical Approaches to Disability and Illness in American Studies

Section

Articles

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Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.